LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap*. _ Copyright So. 

sheit___. £> z. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



From ^ <& «£ &• 
A Cloud <* <* 
Of Witnesses. 



Three Hundred and /Sine Tributes 
to the Bible. 

y 

DAVIS WASGATT CLARK. 




eifleifWATi: eaRTS &jenwiwgs. Vt 

NEW gORK: EATON X MAIJSS. 
1897. 



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A^ 



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COPYRIGHT, 

BY CURTS & JENNINGS. 

1897. 



CONTENTS. 
— * — 

Publishers' Announcement, 5 

Introduction, 9 

TRIBUTES, {£*£ 

Indexes : 

General, 179 

Topical, 186 

By Professions, 188 

By Nationality, 190 

Appendix 

The International Bible Lesson Sys- 
tem: Origin and Extent to Which 

Used, 193 

The Bible Societies and Bible Distri- 
bution, . . 196 

Ignorance Respecting the Bible, . . 198 

The Bible as a Text-book, 205 

A Laureate's Debt to the Bible, . .214 

A Prayer Over the Bible, 215 

Annotations, 217 

3 



/ Tp HE Bible is the life-thought of the 
world. It is replete with all that 
can excite the fancy or give wings to 
the imagination; all that can refine 
the taste, ennoble the affections, and en- 
large the intellect ; all, in fine, that can 
call forth the sublimest thoughts, pre- 
sent the grandest motives of action, and 
enkindle the loftiest expectation in the 
illimitable future. It enters into all 
thought and all feeling, and is allied to 
all interests, earthly and heave7ily. It 
is just such a book as must be read, will 
be read. It will travel through all 
lands, dwell among all people, find a 
home in all languages, permeate all 
thought. The very study a7id effort 
to destroy it will only cause it to pene- 
trate still more deeply into the world's 
thought, and imbed it still more firmly 
in the literature of all ages. 

—BISHOP DAVIS W. CLARK. 
1812-1871. 
4 



HT^HIS is the richest compilation of 
its kind that has yet appeared. 
It outnumbers by some two hundred 
qitotations the largest collectio?i now in 
pri?it. It is unique i?i plan. Its value 
is enhanced by an introdiiction, appen- 
dix, a?id quadruple cross i?idex. It 
shows at a glance how many brilliant 
thinkers have reflected upon the Bible, 
and the substance of their thoughts in 
pithy sentences. The chronological 
notatio?is of year of birth and death in- 
dicate the era to which each belongs. 

The indexes by ?iationality and pro- 
fession serve to locate atdhorities still 
more perfectly. The topical index is 
in itself very suggestive. A metropol- 
itan newspaper recently affirmed edi- 
torially that good books co?iceming the 
Bible are increasingly in demand. It 
is believed that this uncommon volume 
will find a welcome and serve a purpose. 
C. & J. 
5 



*T^HE Bible is either the most adven- 
* lurous and astounding fraud that 
has ever gained currency among men, 
or the most sublime and momentous 
system of verities that has at any time 
appeared upon earth. If the former \ 
it ought not to be impossible to expose 
the imposture ; if the latter, it ought to 
be possible to command for it the re- 
spect of unprejudiced reason and the 
acceptance of rational faith. That 
after so many ages it is still in debate, 
might, to a superficial observer, seem 
to be to the discredit of its claim. A 
more astute and careful judge would 
find the explanation to consist, in part, 
of the unique nature and intrinsic dif- 
ficulty of the claim itself, and, in part, 
of the peculiar relations of the jury to 
the question in dispute. 

—BISHOP RANDOLPH S. FOSTER. 
6 



INTRODUCTION. 



T*HIS compilation is not intended to 
encourage bibliolatry. The Bible 
is God's vehicle. By it he comes to 
our minds and hearts. To worship 
the vehicle is idolatrous. If the book 
could speak, it would cry as the angel 
did to John, "See thou do it not!" 

The trend of our day, however, is 
not in the direction of over-vener- 
ation for the Bible. The first effect 
of the application of the scientific 
method to the Scriptures is to mar 
their beauty for the average eye. At 
first blush they are left without form 
or comeliness, as the Messiah himself 
appeared. 

A prince of the American pulpit 
once exclaimed, " These scientists and 
higher critics are God's Irishmen: 
with pick, spade, and barrow, they 



io 3 n * ro & uc tf° n - 



are removing the dibris of tradition. 
After their work is all done, the rock 
will still remain." 

Some timid souls, however, may 
think the pick is striking deeper than 
the superimposed strata of human 
opinion. They may even imagine 
that the rock itself is being drilled 
preparatory to the introduction of 
explosives that, when the mine is 
sprung, will leave nothing of it. 

While the case is still pending, this 
cloud of witnesses has been sum- 
moned. It is a surprising array, 
representative of every nation, pro- 
fession, rank, and station; of every 
faith, unfaith, anti-faith. The testi- 
mony is clear and largely disinter- 
ested. While its power is certainly 
cumulative, it is not expected or 
claimed to be conclusive. It will 
probably be generally conceded, how- 
ever, that it establishes a good and 
unique character for the Bible. It 



3ntro6uctton. 1 1 



justifies at least a suspension of opinion 
until the case of the Scientific Method 
versus the Bible is closed and the 
book (not a priori theories concern- 
ing it) is vindicated, as it certainly 
will be. 

In these noble tributes, culled with 
care from every available source, 
many will find expression of the pro- 
foundest sentiments of their souls 
concerning the Bible. Admiration, 
reverence, love, faith, here have a 
vocabulary. 



TRIBUTES 

PART I. 



]\/\AY we not discover in the for- 
tunes of this perhaps latest of all 
the sacred writers* save John, a sig- 
nificent type of the fortunes of that 
inspired Word on which we have 
been dwelling? Ofttimes has it been 
dragged over the sharp rocks of hostile 
criticism, ofttimes across the hot sands 
of scorching sarcasm, ofttimes through 
the mire of filthy jesting ; but God 
has been with it. It refuses to die. 
Even when its enemies have fancied it 
finally and forever dispatched, it has 
erelong reasserted its indestructible vi- 
tality, overtoppling earthbor?i fanes of 
superstition, and replacing them with 
temples not made with hands. Even 
the works of nature are frail, caducous, 
and transitory when compared with this 
inspired Book. The grass withereth, 
the flower fadeth, but the Word of our 
God abideth forever. 
—PRESIDENT WILLIAM F. WARREN. 



* Tradition says effort to martyr St. 
Mark, by dragging him behind a chariot, 
failed. 
8 



A Cloud of Witnesses. 
j» j» ji ■* j» 

J^arf I. 

TO the Bible men will return be- 
cause they can not do without it; 
because happiness is our being's end 
and aim, and happiness belongs to 
righteousness, and righteousness is 
revealed in the Bible. For this sim- 
ple reason men will return to the Bi- 
ble, just as a man who tried to give 
up food, thinking it was a vain thing 
and that he could do without it, 
would return to food; or a man 
who tried to give up sleep, thinking 
it was a vain thing and he could do 
without it, would return to sleep. 
1822^1888. — Matthew Arnold. 

1 i\^L Scripture is practical, and in- 
tended to minister to our im- 
provement rather than to our cu- 
riosity. —Ibid. 

13 



14 d <£lou6 of IDtinesses. 

3 |T is astonishing how a Bible sen- 

■ tence clinches and sums up an ar- 
gument. — Ibid. 

4 THERE is no passion that is not 

■ finely expressed in those parts of 
the inspired writings which are proper 
for Divine songs and anthems. 

1672-17 19. — Joseph Addison. 

5 THE Scripture so speaketh that, 

■ with the height of it, it laughs 
proud and lofty-spirited men to scorn ; 
with the depth of it, it terrifies those 
who, with attention, look into it; with 
the truth of it, it feeds men of the 
greatest knowledge and understand- 
ing ; and with the sweetness of it, it 
nourisheth babes and sucklings. 

354-430. — St. Augustine, 

Bishop of Hippo. 

6 I HAVE examined all, as well as 

■ my narrow sphere, my straitened 
means, and my busy life would 
allow me; and the result is, that 
the Bible is the best book in the 
world. 1735-1826. — John Adams, 

Second President United States. 



& <£loub of XPttnesses. 15 



7 f O great is my veneration lor the 
~ Bible that the earlier my children 
begin to read it, the more confident 
will be my hopes that they will prove 
useful citizens to their country and 
respectable members of society. 
1 767-1 848. — John Quincy Adams, 
6th President United States. 



IN what light soever we regard the 
■ Bible, whether with reference to 
revelation, to history, or to morality, 
it is an invaluable mine of knowledge 
and virtue. — Ibid. 



9 I SPEAK as a man of the world to 
■ men of the world ; and I say to you, 
"Search the Scriptures." The Bible 
is the Book of all others to be read at 
all ages and in all conditions of hu- 
man life ; not to be read once or twice 
or thrice through, and then laid aside, 
but to be read in small portions of 
one or two chapters every day, and 
never to be intermitted unless by 
some overruling necessity. 

—Ibid. 



16 Ci Cloub of IDttnesses. 



io f IRS, I have devoured it [the Bible], 
** finding in it words suitable to, 
and descriptive of, the states of my 
mind. The Lord, by his Divine Spirit, 
has been pleased to give me an under- 
standing of what I read therein. 
1777-1825. — Alexander I, 

Czar of Russia. 

11 MO man ever did or ever can be- 

come truly eloquent without be- 
ing a constant reader of the Bible, 
and an admirer of its purity and sub- 
limity. — Fisher Ames. 
1 756-1 808. 

12 B EFORE me lay the Sacred Text : 

The help, the guide, the balm of 
souls perplexed. 
1 538-83. — Alexander Arbuthnot. 

13 A CCEPT the glad tidings, 

The warnings and chidings, 
Found in this volume of heavenly 
lore ; 
With faith that's unfailing, 
And love all prevailing, 
Trust in its promise of life ever- 
more. — Anon. 



CL (Eloub of tDitnesses. 17 



14 THE Bible is full and complete as 
■ a book of direction ; human life is 
full and complete as a field of exercise. 
1835 — Lyman Abbott. 



! S /IS a mere book it will never die. 
*■ Such height of thought, such 
breadth of expression, such aptness 
in speaking to the great heart of the 
race, — surely it will live and be read 
in the world's latest afternoon; and 
when the last ray is fading out of the 
eye of humanity, it will not be to- 
ward Homer or Plato that the strain- 
ing orb will be found directing itself, 
but rather toward the various glories 
of that one Book which deserves to 
be called the Book of Mankind. 

—Ad Fidem. (F. E. Burr.) 



16 T 



HEY who are not induced to be- 
lieve and live as they ought by 
those discoveries which God hath made 
in Scripture, would stand out against 
any evidence whatever, even that of 
a messenger sent express from the 
other w T orld. 

1662-1732. — Francis Atterbury. 



18 (X <£loub of IDttrtesses. 



7 A 



SACRED ark, which from the 
deeps 
Garners the life for worlds to be> 
And with its precious burden 
sweeps 
Adown dark Time's destroying 
sea. — Anon. 



1 8 ^F most other things it may be 
^ said, "Vanity of vanities, all is 
vanity;" but of the Scriptures, Verity 
of verities, all is verity. 
d. 1659. — John Arrowsmith, 

x 9 TTHE Bible evidently transcends all 
* human effort ; it has upon its face 
the impress of divinity ; it shines with 
a light which, from its clearness and 
its splendor, shows itself to be celes- 
tial. Surely, then, it is the Word of 
God. — Archibald Alexander. 

1772-1851. 

20 THE Bible is the standard for earth's 

■ erring millions. The sacred rays 

of Love, Peace, Truth, and Purity 

beam and radiate from its glowing 

page. — Anon. 



CI Cloub of tDttnesses. 19 



T 



HE Bible is the only cement of 
nations. 

— Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen. 
1 79 1 -1 860. (Chevalier Bunsen.) 

22 TT HERE is not a book on earth so 
■ favorable to all the kind, and to all 
the sublime affections, or so unfriendly 
to hatred and persecution, to tyranny, 
injustice, and every sort of malevo- 
lence, as the Gospel. 

1 735-1803. — James Beattie. 

2 3MO book in the world equals the 
" Scripture, even as regards the 
manners and affections. — Bengel o?i 
Acts xx, 37. 

— Johann Albrecht Bengel. 
1687-1752. 

24 IHE think of the Bible as of a struc- 
^* ture solid and eternal. 

— Cyrus Augustus Bartol. 
1813- 

2 5 T r IS very vain for me to boast 

■ How small a price this Bible cost ; 
The day of judgment will make clear 
'T was very cheap or very dear. 
1 746-1767. — Michael Bruce, 

[On the fly-leaf of his Bible.] 



20 CI (£lou6 of IPitnesses. 
* 

26 t O FAR as I have observed God's 
■^ dealings with my soul, the flights 
of preachers sometimes entertained 
me ; but it was Scripture expressions 
which did penetrate my heart, and in 
a way peculiar to themselves. 
1722-1787. — J. Brown, 

Of Haddington. 



27 THE Bible is a precious storehouse 
■ and the Magna Charta of a Chris- 
tian. There he reads of his Heavenly 
Father's love and of his dying Sav- 
ior's legacies. There he sees a map 
of his travels through the wilderness, 
and a landscape, too, of Canaan. 

— Berridge. 



28 I F these facts (on the origin, nature, 
* and progress of the Christian re- 
ligion) are not therefore established, 
nothing in the history of mankind can 
be believed, 
d. 1843. 

— Rt. Hon. Sir C. Kendal Bushe, 
Chief Justice. 



Ct Cloub of tDttnesses. 21 

•*• 

29 THE Bible owes its continued au- 
■ thority and influence to the fact 
that it really contains the Word of 
God; that in its various records flows 
down the full and vigorous river of 
God's truth and grace, in the history 
of a race peculiarly and providen- 
tially fitted to receive special com- 
munications from on high. Nothing 
can ever change or destroy the sub- 
lime merits and religious influence of 
the Mosaic dispensation; nothing out- 
live the strains of David's glorious 
harp ; nothing take the place of Isaiah's 
exalted prophecies ; much less can the 
record of our Savior's life and conver- 
sations ever cease to win the profound- 
est reverence and gratitude of man- 
kind. — Henry W. Bellows. 
1814-1882. 

30 ij I/THOUGH the Greek literature 
" of the New Testament has no 
Demosthenes "On the Crown" or 
Plato's Republic, as it has no Iliad or 
Prometheus, yet it lays the founda- 
tion of the sermon and the theological 
tract, those forms of literature which, 



22 CI Cioub of XPitnesses. 



however little they may appeal to the 
aesthetic taste, have yet been the lit- 
erary means of a world-transform- 
ing power, as, from pulpit and chair, 
Christian ministers have stirred the 
hearts and minds of mankind. 

1 84 1 — Charles A. Briggs, 

Lecture : Languages of the Bible. God's 
Word Man's Light and Guide. Lec- 
tures before N. Y. S. S. Association, 
American Tract Society. 

31 I FIND the Bible the patriot's chart- 
■ book, the child's delight, the old 
man's comfort, the young man's 
guide. In its pages the sick and the 
weary find solace, and the dying hope 
and peace. — Richard Beard. 

1799-1880. 

32 ^ HE poetry of the Bible has been 

■ the forming-power of the greatest 
modern poems. — Ibid. 

33 ^ r HE Bible stands alone in human 

■ literature in its elevated concep- 
tion of manhood as to character and 
conduct. It is the invaluable train- 
ing-book of the world. 

1 81 3-1 887. — Henry Ward Beecher. 



Ct (£louo of XDttnesses. 23 



34 THE Bible emptied, effete, worn 

out ! If all the wisest men of the 
world were placed man to man, they 
could not sound the shallowest depths 
of the Gospel of John. — Ibid. 

35 WHOEVER made that book made 

me. It knows all that is in my 
heart. It tells me what no one else 
except God can know about me. 
Whoever made me, wrote that book. 
— Bishop Boone's Chinese Assistant 
in the translation of the Bible (before 
his conversion). 

36| BELIEVE the Bible, all of it! 
■ The very things I do n't under- 
stand I believe the most of all. I 
would n't exchange my faith for any 
man's knowledge. 

1818-1885. —Henry W. Shaw, 

(Josh Billings.) 

37 T r HERE never was found in any 
age of the world either religion 
or law that did so highly exalt the 
public good as the Bible. 

1 561-1626. — Francis Bacon. 



24 (X (Eloub of XDitnesses. 
+ 

38 A S THE moon, for all those darker 
" parts we call her spots, gives us 

much greater light than the stars, 
which seem all luminous, so will the 
Scripture; for all its obscurer pas- 
sages afford more light than the 
brightest human authors. 

1626-1691. — Robert Boyle. 

39 j\ S SOME pictures seem to have 
*• their eyes fixed upon every one 
from whatsoever part of the room he 
eyes them, there is scarce a frame of 
spirit a man can be of, to which some 
passage of Scripture is not as appli- 
cable as if it were meant for or said 
to him. — Ibid. 

40 I USE the Scriptures, not as an ar- 
™ senal to be resorted to only for 
arms and weapons, . . . but as a 
matchless temple, where I delight to 
contemplate the beauty, the symme- 
try, and the magnificence of the 
structure, and to increase my awe 
and excite my devotion to the Deity 
there preached and adored. — Ibid. 



(X (Elouo of IDttnesses. 25 
.4. 

41 TT HOUGH many other books are 
" comparable to cloth, in which by 
a small pattern we may safely judge 
of the whole piece, yet the Bible is 
like a fair suit of arras, of which 
though a shred may assure you of 
the fineness of the colors and rich- 
ness of the stuff, yet the hangings 
never appear to their full advantage 
but when they are displayed to their 
full dimensions and are seen together. 

—Ibid. 

42 I N THE Bible the ignorant may 
■ learn all required knowledge, and 
the most knowing may learn to dis- 
cern their ignorance. — Ibid. 

43*|* HE Parable of the Prodigal Son, 
■ the most beautiful fiction that ever 
was invented ; our Savior's speech to 
his disciples, with which he closed 
his earthly ministrations, full of the 
sublimest dignity and tenderest affec- 
tion, surpass anything that I ever 
read, and, like the spirit by which 
they were dictated, fly directly to the 
heart. — William Cowper. 

1731-1800. 



26 (X <£loub of ZDitnesses. 
+ 

44 'T* IS Revelation satisfies all doubts, 

' Explains all mysteries, except 

her own, 
And so illuminates the path of life, 
That fools discover it and stray no 

more. — Ibid. 

45 /I CRITIC on the Sacred Book 

" should be 

Candid and learned, dispassionate and 
free, — 

Free from the wayward bias bigots 
feel, 

From fancy's influence and intem- 
perate zeal. — Ibid. 

46 M O other Scriptures of man compare 
** with it for wide, deep, and ever- 
growing influence. It is the highest 
work of its class— that is, of the sa- 
cred writings of ma?ikind — and these 
sacred writings are, among all other 
writings, the most important and in- 
fluential. . . . 

Every commanding race, every vast 
civilization, has been directed and con- 
trolled by its sacred writings. The 
hundred and fifty millions of Hindus 



CI (Eloub of tDitnesses. 27 
'♦■ 
have been ruled, during twenty-five 
centuries, by their Vedas and Pu- 
ranas. Chinese civilization has taken 
its stamp from the " Four Books " 
and "The Kings." The brilliant 
career of the Persian Empire was 
inspired throughout by the Zend- 
Avesta. The tribes of Arabia were 
gathered, molded, banded, and wielded 
in a resistless tide of conquest by the 
Koran. The sacred books of the 
Buddhists have been the leaven of 
civilization among a third part of the 
human race during a vast period of 
time. If we judge them by their in- 
fluence, these are the great books of 
the human race. But, for various 
reasons, the Bible stands above them 
all. The others are the books of 
particular races — of the Hindus 
only, or the Mongols, or the Per- 
sians, or the Chinese; but the 
Bible has a constituency composed of 
all the races of the world. The oth- 
ers belong to decaying, arrested, or 
dead civilizations; the Bible to the 
advancing and all-conquering races, 
who stand for the highest civilization 



28 d (£loub of IDttnesses. 



attained on this planet. The others 
are either narrow or shallow in some 
directions; the Bible is a fountain 
whose waters feed intellect, heart, 
life, promoting the highest worship 
as well as the largest humanity. . . . 

Kingdoms fall, institutions perish, 
civilizations change, human doctrines 
disappear; but the imperishable truths 
which pervade and sanctify the Bible 
shall bear it up above the flood of 
change and the deluge of years. 

— James Freeman Clark, 
Lecture : " What is the Bible ? and Where 

Did it Come From ?" 

1810-1883, 

47 "l^HK incongruity of the Bible, with 
■ the age of its birth, its freedom 
from earthly mixtures, its original 
unborrowed, solitary greatness, the 
suddenness with which it broke forth 
amidst the universal gloom, — these to 
me are strong indications of its di- 
vine descent. I can not reconcile 
them with a human origin. 

— William Ellery Channing. 
1780-1842. 



CI Cloub of tDttrtesses. 29 



48 THE Gospels, in which the Christ 

* is placed before us so vividly, are, 
in truth, the chief repositories of di- 
vine wisdom. The greatest produc- 
tions of human genius have little 
quickening power in comparison with 
these simple narratives. In reading 
the Gospels, I feel myself in presence 
of one who speaks as man never 
spake; whose voice is not of the 
earth; who speaks with a tone of 
reality and authority altogether his 
own. . . . No books astonish me 
like the Gospels. ... Of all books 
the}' deserve most the study of youth 
and age. — Ibid. 

49 IN the Bible there is more that fi?zds 
■ me than I have experienced in all 
other books put together; the words 
of the Bible find me at greater depths 
of my being; and whatever finds me 
brings with it an irresistible evidence 
of its having proceeded from the Holy 
Spirit. 

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 
In Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit : 
London Ed., William Pickering. 1840. 
1772-1834. 



30 Ci (Eloub of XDttnesses. 

=*» 

50 INTENSE study of the Bible will 
■ keep any man from being vulgar in 
point of style. — Ibid. 

5i WOULD I withhold the Bible from 



w 



Heaven forbid! The fairest flower 
that ever clomb up a cottage window 
is not so fair a sight to my eyes as 
the Bible gleaming through the lower 
panes. — Ibid,, p. 85. 



52 BOR more than a thousand years 
■ the Bible, collectively taken, has 
gone hand in hand with civilization, 
science, law; in short, with moral 
and intellectual cultivation; always 
supporting, and often leading, the 
way. — Ibid., p. 71. 



53 THE sanctions of the Divine law 

■ cover the whole area of human 

action, reach every case, punish every 

sin, and recompense every virtue. 



CC Cloub of tDttnesses. 31 



Its rewards and its punishments are 
graduated with perfect justice. 
1 769-1 828. — DeWitt Clinton. 

54 THERE was plainly wanting a Di- 
■ vine revelation to recover man- 
kind out of their universal corrup- 
tion and degeneracy. 

1675-1729. — Samuel Clarke. 



55 IT is just as if the art of ship-build- 

■ ing should be conducted without 
helms. Tall ships should be set 
afloat to be guilded by the winds 
only. For such are the immortal ships 
on the sea of human life without the 
Bible. Its knowledge, its principles, 
ought from the first to be as much a 
part of the educated, intelligent con- 
stitution as the keel or rudder is part 
and parcel of a well-built ship. 

1807 — George B. Cheever, 

Pilgrim of the Jungfrau, p. 59. 

56 I CAN not look around me without 

■ being struck by the analogy observ- 
able in the works of God. I find the 



32 Ct (Llouo of IDitnesses. 

Bible written in the style of his other 
books of creation and providence. 
The pen seems in the same hand. I 
see it at times, indeed, write mysteri- 
ously in each of these books; but I 
know that mystery in the works of 
God is only another name for my ig- 
norance. The moment, therefore, 
that I become humble, all becomes 
right. — Richard Cecil. 

1748-1810. 

57 ^PHE Bible resembles an extensive 

■ garden where there is a vast va- 
riety and profusion of fruits and flow- 
ers, some of which are more essential or 
more splendid than others ; but there 
is not a blade suffered to grow in it 
which has not its use and beauty in 
the system. — Ibid. 

58 I EARNESTLY hope that God's day 
■ may be hallowed, and his Word may 
be studied through this whole land, till 
their obligations are felt and acknowl- 
edged by all its people. 

1782-1866. — Lewis Cass. 



Ct <£loub of VOitmsses. 33 



59 I HAVE but one book, but that is 
■ the best. 
— William Collins to Dr. Johnson. 
1720-1756. 



60 /% NOBLE Book ! All men's Book ! 

" It is our first oldest statement of 
the never-ending problem — man's des- 
tiny and God's ways with him here'on 
earth ; and all in such free-flowing 
outlines — grand in its sincerity, in its 
simplicity and its epic melody. 
1 795- 1 88 1. — Thomas Carlyle. 



61 IN the poorest cottage are books — 

is one Book wherein, for several 
thousands of years, the spirit of man 
has found light and nourishment and 
an interpreting response to whatever 
is deepest in him. — Ibid. 

62 TT O see God's own law universally 

acknowledged as it stands in the 
Holy Written Book; to see this — or 
the true unwearied aim and struggle 
toward this — is a thing worth living 
and dying for. — Ibid. 

3 



34 CI Clouo of tDttnesses. 

63 WHEN one said to. Carlyle that 
" there was nothing remarkable in 
the Book of Proverbs, he simply re- 
plied, "Make a few." 



64 W 



HATEVER strong situations I 
have in my tales are not of my 
creation, but are taken from the Bible. 
— Thomas Henry Hall Caine. 
1853- 



65 TTHE Bible is unquestionably the 
■ richest repository of thought and 
imagery, and the best model of pure 
style that our language can boast. 
— W. B. Clulow. 



66 CCHOLARS may quote Plato in 
^ studies, but the hearts of millions 
shall quote the Bible at their daily 
toil, and draw strength from its inspi- 
ration as the meadows draw it from 
the brook 

— Moncure Daniel Conway. 
1832- 



CI Cloub of ZDitnesses. 35 



68 



67 ^R whether more abstractedly we 
V look 
Or on the writers or the written 

book, 
Whence but for heaven could men 

unskilled in arts, 
In several ages born, in several parts 
Weave such agreeing truths ? or how 

or why- 
Should all conspire to cheat us with 

a lie? 
Unasked their pains, ungrateful their 

advice ; 
Starving their gain, and martydom 

their price. — John Dryden. 
1631-1700. 



pOR Scripture style is noble and 

divine, 
It speaks no less than God in every 

line ; 
It is not built on disquisition vain, 
The things we must believe are few 

and plain. — Ibid. 



36 Ci Cloub of tDitnesses. 

,+, 

69 QIBL,E Christianity is the compan- 
■^ ion of liberty in all its conflicts, 
the cradle of its infancy, and the 
divine source of its claims. 

— Charles Henri Clerel de 
1805-1859. Tocqueville. 

70 TTHB Bible is a window in the prison 

■ of hope through which we look 
into eternity. — Timothy Dwight. 
1752-1S18. 

71 THE grand old Book of God still 

stands; and this old earth, the 
more its leaves are turned over and 
pondered, the more it will sustain 
and illustrate the Sacred Word. 
1813-1895. — James Dwight Dana. 

72THE first thought that strikes the 
scientific reader is the evidence 
of divinity, not merely in the first 
verse of the record and the successive 
fiats, but in the whole order of crea- 
tion. There is so much that the most 
recent readings of science have for the 
first time explained, that the idea of 
man as the author becomes utterly in 



G, Cioub of tDttnesses. 37 



comprehensible. By proving the rec- 
ord true, science pronounces it divine; 
for who could have correctly narrated 
the secrets of eternity but God him- 
self? —Ibid. 

73 ^ND, finally, I may state, as the 
" conclusion of the whole matter, 
that the Bible contains within itself 
all that, under God, is required to ac- 
count for and dispose of all forms 
of infidelity, and to turn to the best 
and highest uses all that man can 
learn of nature. 

— CHA^XELLOR DAWSON. 



74 MO better lessons than those of the 

Bible can I teach my child. 
1713-1784. — Denis Diderot. 

75 THE cruel battles fought some 

years ago round the MalakofT 
tower showed that in that fortress lay 
the key of war, and on it depended 
defeat or triumph. So the multiplied 
attacks directed in our day against the 
Bible indicate that it is, in view of 



38 Ci Cloub of IDitnesses. 

our adversaries, the tower which, 
above all others, must be torn down. 

— Jean Henri Merle, D'Aubigne. 

i 794-1872. 

76 THE voice of the past is now sel- 
dom heard in the din of clashing 
opinions and interests. Saint Augus- 
tine and Saint Chrysostom, of the 
early Christian era, commanded the 
attention of the world. The school- 
men of the Dark Ages led the 
thought of the times through uni- 
versities, where thirty thousand stu- 
dents were entered on the rolls. 
IvUther and Melanchthon, and Eras- 
mus and Grotius, were spokesmen of 
the effort for spiritual, intellectual, and 
civil liberty, which has incalculably 
affected the destinies of mankind. The 
Puritan divines of the first hundred 
years of New England settlement in- 
spired the thought and governed the 
course of the colleges and controlled 
the minds of the people. Now, no 
one, outside the antiquaries and crit- 
ical few, reads the Fathers of the 
Church, the Schoolmen, the Leaders 



CC Cloub of XPttnesses. 39 



of the Reformation, or Cotton Mather, 
or Jonathan Edwards. The body of 
truth from which they derived their 
doctrines and constructed their sys- 
tems is found in the open Bible, by 
every fireside in the land. From its 
pages the individual, according to his 
or her light and opportunity, draws 
the lessons of life. 

1834- — Chauncey M. Depew. 

77 T'HE next point to be attended to 
is this : What books ought you to 
read? There are some books that are 
absolutely indispensable to the kind 
of education that we are contemplat- 
ing, and to the profession that we are 
considering ; and of all these the most 
indispensable, the most useful, the 
one whose knowledge is most effective, 
is the Bible. There is no book from 
which more valuable lessons can be 
learned. I am considering it now not 
as a religious book, but as a manual 
of utility, of professional preparation 
and professional use, for a journalist. 
There is, perhaps, no book whose 
style is more suggestive and more 



40 (X <£lou& of IDttnesses. 

instructive, from which you learn 
more directly that sublime simplic- 
ity which never exaggerates, which 
recounts the greatest event, with so- 
lemnity of course, but without senti- 
mentality or affectation; none which 
you open with such confidence and 
lay down with such reverence ; there 
is no book like the Bible. When you 
get into a controversy and want ex- 
actly the right answer, when you are 
looking for an expression, what is 
there that closes a dispute like a verse 
from the Bible ? What is it that sets 
up the right principle for you, which 
pleads for a policy, for a cause, so 
much as the right passage of Holy 
Scripture? 

— Charles A. Dana, 
Of the New York Sun, in " Journal- 
ism," a lecture at Union College. 
1819— 

78 IN this Book is all the wisdom of the 
■ world. 
— Georg Henrich August Ewald, 

In conversation with Dean Stanley. 
1803-1875. 



(X Cloub of Witnesses. 41 



79 A\UT from the heart of nature rolled 
^ The burdens of the Bible old. 
— Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
1803-1882. 



80 THERE is yet another sword to be 
delivered to me. I mean the 
sacred Bible, which is the Sword of 
the Spirit, without which we are noth- 
ing, neither can we do anything. 
— Edward VI, 
(At his coronation, on receiving the 
swords of England, France, and 
Ireland.) 
Reigned 1 547-1553- 



81 ^fllvL the distinctive features and su- 

periority of our republican insti- 
tutions are derived from the teachings 
of Scripture. — Edward Everett. 
1794-1865. 

82 T'HIS narrative contains nothing 

which does not accurately corre- 
spond to a court of Pharaoh in the 
best times of the kingdom. 

1837 — — Georg Ebers. 



42 CC (Lloub of tDttnesses. 



83 Cm OD has not so poised the Rock of 
^ Ages that the higher or lower 
criticism, with pickax or crowbar dig- 
ging out a chronological inaccuracy 
here or prying off a historical contra- 
diction there, is going to upset it. 
The critic may be all right, and the 
crowbar may be all right; but the 
Rock of Ages is all right too, and it 
will stand forever. 

— Professor Iy. J. Kvans. 
Biblical Scholarship and Inspiration, 
p. 70 



84 ^THB yardstick, if used for micro- 

scopic measurements, would fail ; 
but as a yardstick it is infallible. So 
with the Bible. Its infallibility is 
not microscopic, infinitesimal infalli- 
bility respecting all particular things 
in the heavens above and the earth 
beneath, or in the waters under the 
earth. — Ibid., p. 831. 

85 |S it not the claim and glory of the 

Gospel story that it combines the 
dignity and authority of a heavenly 



<X Cloub of HHtnesses. 43 



recital with the piquant frankness of 
the conversational fireside tale? 

—Ibid. 

86 WHICH book has done the most for 

liberty, justice, progress? Which 
book has most persistently branded, 
defied, and theatened every form of 
tyranny? Which book has spoken 
with the truest pathos to the wounded 
and sorrowing heart? The test is 
fair ; the words and works are before 
you — judge them. 

— Ecce De?is: Joseph Parker. 

87 YOUNG man, my advice, to you is, 

that you cultivate an acquaint- 
ance with, and a firm belief in, the 
Holy Scriptures. This is your cer- 
tain interest. 

1 706-1 790. — Benjamin Franklin. 

88 £k BIBI^E and a newspaper in every 

house, a good school in every dis- 
trict — all studied and appreciated as 
they merit — are the principal support 
of virtue, morality, and civil liberty. 

—Ibid. 



44 & Cloub of HMtnesses. 



89^ HE Scriptures teach us the best 
* way of living, the noblest way of 
suffering, and the most comfortable 
way of dying. — John Flavei*. 

1630-1691. 



9° W OW precious is the Book divine, 
■ * By inspiration given ! 
Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine, 
To guide our souls to heaven. 
1 739-1 8 1 9. — John Fawcett. 



91 1 



WOUIyD not now exchange for any 
amount of money the acquaintance 
with the Bible that was drummed into 
me when a boy. — Eugene Field. 
1850- 1895. 



9 2 TTHE uncommon beauty and mar- 
■ velous English of the Protestant 
Bible — it lives on the ear like music 
that never can be forgotten ; like the 
sound of choice bells which the con- 
vert hardly knows how to forego. 
Its felicities often seem to be things 
rather than mere words. It is part of 



CL <£loub of HHtnesses. 45 



the national mind, and the anchor of 
national seriousness. 

— Frederick William Faber. 
1814-1863. 

93 THE peculiar genius, if such a word 

■ may be permitted, which breathes 
through it [the authorized version] ; 
the mingled tenderness and majesty; 
the Saxon simplicity, the preternatural 
grandeur, unequaled, unapproached 
in the attempted improvements of 
modern scholars, — all are here, and 
bear the impress of the mind of one 
man, and that man William Tyndale. 

— James Anthony Froude. 
1818-1894. 

94HTHE Bible— a stream, where alike 

■ the elephant may swim and the 
lamb may wade. 

— Pope Gregory I: The Great. 
544-604. 

95 QTHER books, after shining their 

season, may perish in flames 

fiercer than those which consumed 

the Alexandrian library. This, in 



46 CI Cloufc of IDttnesses. 

essence, must remain pure as gold and 
unconsumable as asbestos. 
181 3-1878. — George Gilfillan. 

96 I T has been subjected, along with 
■ many others books, to the fire of 
the keenest investigation — a fire 
which has contemptuously burned up 
the cosmogony of the Shaster, the 
absurd fables of the Koran; nay, the 
husbandry of the Georgics, the his- 
torical truth of Iyivy, the artistic 
merit of many a popular poem, the au- 
thority of many a book of philosophy 
and science. And yet there this art- 
less, loosely-piled book lies unhurt, 
untouched, with not one page singed ; 
and not even the smell of fire has 
passed upon it. — Ibid. 



if 



97 l BELIKVE in God, and adore him. 
have a firm belief in the history 
contained in the Old and New Testa- 
ments and in the regeneration of the 
human race by the sacrifice of Jesus 
Christ. I bow before the mysteries 
of the Bible and the gospel, and I 
hold myself aloof from scientific 



CX Cloub of IDitnesses. 47 



discussion and solutions by which 
men have attempted to explain them. 
— Francois Pierre Guillaume 
1 787-1 874. Guizot. 



98 UOLD fast to the Bible as the sheet- 
■ ■ anchor to your liberties, write its 
precepts in your hearts, and practice 
them in your lives. To the influence 
of this Book we are indebted for all 
progress made in our true civilization, 
and to this we must look as our guide 
in the future. — U. S. Grant, 

1822-1885. 18th President U. S. 



99 rpHIS is the cannon (the Bible) that 
■ will make Italy free. 
1 807-1 882. — Giuseppe Garibaldi. 

X0 ° 1¥/B all require to feed in the pas- 
■■ tures and to drink at the wells of 
Holy Scripture. 

— William Ewart Gladstone. 
1809 — 

101 |F I am asked what is the remedy 
■ for the deeper sorrows of the hu- 
man heart — what a man should chiefly 



48 <X (£lou6 of IDttnesses. 

look to in his progress through life 
as the power that is to sustain him 
under trials and enable him man- 
fully to confront his afflictions — I 
must point to something which in a 
well-known hymn is called "The old, 
old story," told of an old, old Book, 
and taught with an old, old teaching, 
which is the greatest and best gift 
ever given to mankind. — Ibid. 

102 | t j s impossible to mentally or so- 
■ cially enslave a Bible-reading peo- 
ple. The principles of the Bible are 
the ground- work of human freedom. 

1811-1872. — Horace Greeley. 

10 3 M O criticism will be able to perplex 

the confidence I have entertained 
in a writing whose contents have 
stirred up and given life to my energy 
by its own. 

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 

1749-1833. 

10 4 I T is a belief in the Bible, the fruits 

of deep meditation, which has 
served me as the guide of my moral 



CI (£loub of tDitnesses. 49 



and literary life. I have found it a 
capital safely invested, and richly 
productive of interest. — Ibid. 

I0 5 I ESTEEM the Gospels to be thor- 
oughly genuine, for there shines 
forth from them the reflected splendor 
of a sublimit} 7 proceeding from the 
person of Jesus Christ of so divine a 
kind as only the divine could have 
manifested upon earth. — Ibid. 

106THE farther the ages advance in 
cultivation, the more can the Bi- 
ble be used, partly as the foundation, 
partly as the means of education, not, 
of course, by superficial, but by really 
wise men. — Ibid. 

107 J X is a sacred duty to hear and de- 
voutly read the Word of God. 

— Cardinal Gibbons, 
In sermon in Cathedral at Baltimore. 
1834— 



108 



WHATEVER changes we may ex- 
pect to be introduced by new 
discoveries, in our present view of 
4 



5o CL £louo of IDitnesses. 



the universe and the globe the prom- 
inent traits of this vast picture will 
remain. And these only are traced 
out in this admirable account of Gen- 
esis. These outlines were sufficient 
for the moral purposes of the book; 
the scientific details are for us pa- 
tiently to investigate. They were, 
no doubt, unknown to Moses, as the 
details of the life and of the work of 
the Savior were unknown to the 
great prophets who announced his 
coming, and traced out with master 
hand his character and objects, cen- 
turies before his appearance on earth. 
But the same divine hand which 
lifted up before the eyes of Daniel 
and of Isaiah the veil which covered 
the tableau of the time to come, un- 
veiled before the eyes of the author 
of Genesis the earliest ages of crea- 
tion. And Moses was the prophet 
of the past, as Daniel and Isaiah and 
many others were the prophets of the 
future. — Arnold Henry Guyot. 
1807-1884. 



CI Cloub of IDttnesses. 51 

109TO say that the Hebrew literature 
is the best literature that the 
world has ever produced is to say very 
little. It is separated widely from 
all other sacred writings. Its con- 
structive ideas are as far above those 
of the other books of religion as the 
heavens are above the earth. I pity 
the man who has had the Bible in 
his hand from his infancy, and who 
has learned in his maturer years some- 
thing of the literature of the other re- 
ligions, but who now needs to have 
this statement verified. 

— Washington Gladden, 
"Who Wrote the Bible?" p. 15. 



110 RIFLES laid open — millions of sur- 
■^ prises ! George Herbert. 

1593-1632. 



T 



HIS Book of stars lights to eter- 
nal bliss. — Ibid. 



'HE Bible is common sense in- 
spired. — R. HowEM£. 



52 (X Cloub of XDitnesses. 



^3 CYSTEMATIC study of the Sacred 
** Scriptures is essential to the pro- 
motion of a spiritual life. 

1802-1887. — Mark Hopkins. 



"4 pVBRY leaf is a spacious plain, 
"■' every line a flowing brook, every 
period a lofty mountain. 

1714-1758. — James Hervey. 



115 TTHE Bible is the most sensible book 
■ in the world. The maiden does 
not find her chapter in the Bible from 
which she passes away when she comes 
among mothers, to find her new sec- 
tion ready for her; but the whole Bi- 
ble is the common heritage of mother 
and maiden. —John Hall. 

1829— 



116 THE Word of God is solid; it will 
* stand a thousand readings; and 
the man who has gone over it the 
most frequently and carefully is the 
surest of finding new wonders there. 
1814-1867. — James Hamilton. 



G, (Oouo of tDitnesses. 53 

4- 

IX 7 IN preparing a guide to immortality, 
* infinite wisdom gave not a diction- 
ary nor a grammar, but a Bible — a 
Book which, in trying to catch the 
heart of man, should captivate his 
taste, and which, in transforming his 
affections, should also expand his in- 
tellect. —Ibid. ~~ 

118 TTHB most illiterate Christian, if he 
■ can but read his English Bible, 
will not only attain all that practical 
knowledge which is essential to sal- 
vation, but, by God's blessing, he will 
become learned in everything relating 
to his religion. 

— Samuei, Horsley. 
1 733-1 806. 

XI 9 C^OMK of the pleasantest recollec- 
^ tions of my childhood are con- 
nected with the voluntary study of 
an ancient Bible which belonged to 
my grandmother. I enumerate, as 
they issue, the childish impressions 
which come crowding out of the 
pigeon-holes in my brain, in which 



54 CL Cloub of tDitnesses. 

■♦■ 

they have lain almost undisturbed 
for forty years. 

— Thomas Henry Huxley. 
1825— 

1 I HAVE always been strongly in 
■ favor of secular education, in the 
sense of education without theology; 
but I must confess I have been no 
less seriously perplexed to know by 
what practical measures the religious 
feeling, which is the essential basis 
of conduct, was to be kept up, in the 
present utterly chaotic state of opin- 
ion on these matters, without the use 
of the Bible. The pagan moralists 
lack life and color ; and even the no- 
ble stoic, Marcus Antoninus, is too 
high and refined for an ordinary child. 
Take the Bible as a whole ; make the 
severest deductions which fair criti- 
cism can dictate, and there still re- 
mains in this old literature a vast re- 
siduum of moral beauty and grandeur. 
By the study of what other book 
could children be so much human- 
ized ? If Bible-reading is not accom- 
panied by constraint and solemnity, 



CI <£loub of IDttnesses. 55 

I do not believe there is anything in 
which children take more pleasure. 
— Ibid., in public address. 



I HOLD to the Bible as a great edu- 
■ cator. It is an unquestioned fact 
that for the last three centuries this 
Book has been woven into all that is 
best and noblest in English literature 
and history. — Ibid. 

pOR fifty years I have been study- 
* ing the Bible with all my might, 
digging into it and searching it 
through and through, and it is al- 
ways fresh. I seem still to be only 
scratching the surface. 

— Canon Hoare. 



I2 3 1MB are astonished to find in a lyr- 
' ical poem, so limited in compass, 
the whole universe — the heavens and 
the earth — sketched with a few bold 
touches. 
— Baron William von Humboldt, 
1 767-1 835. On Psalm civ. 



56 CX Cloub of IPitnesses. 
♦• 

12 4 ^LL that has been done to weaken 
** the foundation of an implicit faith 
in the Bible, as a whole, has been at 
the expense of the sense of religious 
obligation, and at the cost of human 
happiness. — J. G. Holland. 

1819-1881. 

12 5 1¥#E believe that the Scriptures of 
** the Old and New Testaments 

form a collection of laws never to be 
repealed; of infallible judgments 
never to be reversed ; of answers to the 
most momentous inquiries man can 
propose, answers never to be recalled ; 
all the information which heaven 
deems necessary for earth — so suffi- 
cient that no serious doubts can ever 
be started, no important question ever 
arise on any moral subject, which it 
has not anticipated, and to which it 
does not reply. — John Harris. 

1667-1719. 



I SEE that the Bible fits into every 
fold and crevice of the human 



126 

heart. I am a man: and I believe 



CX Cloub of HHtnesses. 57 



that this is God's Book, because it 
is man's Book. — Henry Hali,am. 
1777-1859. 

12 7 THERE is scarcely any part of 

* knowledge worthy of the mind 
of man but from Scripture it may 
have some direction and light. 
1553-1600. — Richard Hooker. 

128 Iff HAT a Book ! Vast and wide as 

w the world, rooted in the abysses 
of Creation, and towering up behind 
the blue secrets of heaven. Sunrise 
and sunset, promise and fulfillment, 
birth and death, the whole drama of 
humanity, all in this Book ! 

1797-1847. — Heinrich Heine. 

129 I ATTRIBUTE my illumination en- 

tirely and simply to the reading of 
a book. Yes, and it is an old, homely 
book, modest as nature, also as nat- 
ural as she herself — a book which has 
a work-a-day and unassuming look, 
like the sun which warms us, like the 
bread which nourishes us — a book 
which looks at us as cordially and 



58 CI Cloub of XDitnesses. 



blessingly as the old grandmother 
who daily reads in it with her dear 
trembling lips, and with her specta- 
cles on her nose ; and this book is 
called shortly the book, the bible. 
With right is this named the Holy 
Scripture; he who has lost his God 
can find him again in this book, and 
he who has never known him is here 
struck by the breath of the Divine 
Word. —Ibid. 

J 3° IN a few chosen sentences we acquire 
* more accurate knowledge of the 
affairs of Egypt, Tyre, Syria, As- 
syria, Babylon, and other neigh- 
boring nations than had been pre- 
served to us in all the other remains 
of antiquity up to the recent discov- 
eries in hieroglyphical and cuneiform 
monuments. 

— Lord Arthur Hervey, 
Smith B. Die. Vol. Ill, p. 1561, Am. Ed. 

x 3 l IF an uninterested spectator, after a 
careful perusal of the New Testa- 
ment, were asked what he conceived 
to be its distinguishing characteristic, 



CI (EIouo of tPitnesses. 59 



lie would reply without hesitation, 
"That wonderful spirit of philan- 
thropy by which it is distinguished." 
It is a perpetual commentary on that 
eternal aphorism, "God is love." 
1 764-1 83 1. — Robert Hale. 

X32 /I^^ human discoveries seem to be 
" made only for the purpose of 
confirming more and more strongly 
the truths contained in the Holy 
Scriptures. 

— John Frederick Wieeiam 
Herschee. 
1792-1871. 

x 33 IN those fragments, there is the tri- 
* umph of the great Personality of 
all time. Lord of Life, we call him 
wisely. Because the Bible incloses 
the Fotfr Gospels, explains, illus- 
trates, leads down to them and leads 
back to them ; because, so leading, it 
shows always that life is always mas- 
ter, and that forms obey — forms, 
methods, law, fashion, and all the 
outside— that these obey and must 
obey ; because the Bible is the Book 



6o CI (£louo of IDitnesses. 



of Iyife, and the Book of the L,ord of 
Iyife — because of this it keeps its 
hold upon the world. 

1822 — — Edward Everett Hale. 

x 34 QIVE to the people who toil and 
^ suffer, for whom this world is 
hard and bad, the belief that there is 
a better made for them ; scatter the 
gospel among the villages, a Bible 
for every cottage. 

1802-1885. — Victor Marie Hugo. 

135 THEY have the Bible.— John Jay, 

■ First Chief Justice U. S., when 
asked if he had any farewell address 
to leave his children. 

1745-1829. 

i3 6 THAT Book is the rock on which 

■ the Republic stands. 

— Andrew Jackson, 
1 767-1 845. 7th President U. S. 

x 37 I HAVE always said, and always 
■ will say, that the studious perusal 
of the Sacred Volume will make bet- 
ter citizens, better fathers, and better 
husbands. — Thomas Jefferson, 
1743-1826. 3d President U.S. 



CI Cloub of XPttnesses, 61 



x 38 i HAVE carefully and regularly pe- 
■ rused the Holy Scriptures, and am 
of opinion that the volume, inde- 
pendently of its Divine origin, con- 
tains more sublimity, purer morality, 
more important history, and finer 
strains, both of poetry and elo- 
quence, than could be collected 
within the same compass from all 
other books that were ever composed 
in any age or in any idiom. 
1 746-1 798. — w. Jones. 

*39 fjOD in tender indulgence to our 

* different dispositions has strewed 

the Bible with flowers, dignified it 

with wonders, and enriched it with 

delight. — F. Joubert. 

1689-1763. 

140 "yOUNG man, attend to the voice 
of one who has possessed a cer- 
tain degree of fame, and who will 
shortly appear before his Maker. Read 
the Bible every day of your life. 
1 709-1 784. — Samuel Johnson, 
In conversation. 



62 (X Cloub of IDitnesses. 



J 4* J-ITIKS fall, kingdoms come to 
^ nothing, empires fade away as 
smoke. Where is Numa, Minos, 
L,ycurgus? Where are their books, 
and what is become of their laws ? 
But that this Book no tyrant should 
have been able to consume, no tradi- 
tion to choke, no heretic maliciously 
to corrupt; that it should stand unto 
this day, amid the wreck of all that 
is human, without the alteration of 
one sentence so as to change the doc- 
trine taught therein, — surely there is 
a very singular providence claiming 
our attention in a most remarkable 
manner. — John Jewell, 

i 522-157 i. Bishop of Salisbury. 

J 42 I OOK in the Holy Scriptures for 
■■ truth, not for eloquence, and read 
them with that mind wherewith they 
were written — for thine everlasting 
profit, and not for a polished phrase. 
1380-1471. — Thomas a Kempis. 

143 TTHK general diffusion of the Bible 
■ is the most effectual way to civil- 
ize and humanize mankind , to purify 



(X Cloub of tPttnesses. 63 



and exalt the general system of pub- 
lic morals ; to give efficacy to the just 
precepts of international and munic- 
ipal law; to enforce the observance of 
prudence, temperance, justice, and 
fortitude ; to improve all the relations 
of social and domestic life. 
1 763-1 847. — James Kent, 

Chancellor of N. Y. 



144 THE Bible of the Christian is, with- 
■ out exception, the most remark- 
able work now in existence. In the 
libraries of the learned are frequently 
seen books of an extraordinary antiq- 
uity, and curious and interesting from 
the nature of their contents; but none 
approach the Bible, taken in its com- 
plete sense, in point of age, while cer- 
tainly no production whatever has 
any pretensions to rival it in dignity 
of composition or the important na- 
ture of the subjects treated of in its 
pages. — John Kitto. 

1 804-1 854. 



64 CX Cloub of H)itnesses. 



H5 I N regard to the great Book I have 
■ only to say, it is the best book God 
has given to man. All the good from 
the Savior of the world is communi- 
cated in this Book. 

1 809-1 865. — Abbraham Lincoln, 
16th President U.S. (to the colored men 
of Baltimore, who presented him with 
a Bible, September 14, 1864). 



146 ^HK Bible is a book in comparison 
■ with which all others in my eyes 
are of minor importance, and which 
in all my perplexities and distresses 
has never failed to give me light and 
strength. 

— Robert E. Lee. 
1 807-1 870. 



147 THE Bible is indeed the most in- 
■ teresting book in the world — to 
the poet, to the historian, to the phi- 
losopher, to the student of human na- 
ture, to the lover of the picturesque 
and of the marvelous, to the archaeol- 
ogist, to the man of letters, to the 
man of affairs. To each of these it 



Ci Cloub of tDttnesses. 65 
*• 

has much to say that he will find no- 
where else. 

— Henry Parry Liddon. 
Sermon : " Supreme Value of the Scrip- 
tures," preached in St. Paul's. 
1829-1890. 

148 T'HE best literature of thirty cen- 
■ turies is to be found in the Bible. 
Warriors have fought for it; mar- 
tyrs have died for it. The sacred 
books of the Christian, Mohamme- 
dan, and the works of the philos- 
ophers have stolen its brightest gems. 
It fired the eloquence of an Akiba 
and a Chrysostom, "upon whose lips 
the bees settled and left their honey 
there." It suggested the divine 
poems of Halevi, Racine, and Milton. 
It awoke the intrepid genius of Maim- 
onides, Spinoza, and Mendelssohn. It 
inspired the pictures of Raphael, the 
sculptures of Angelo, the music of 
Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer ; Handel. 
This Book has destroyed tyranny. 
— Rabbi J. Leonard Levy. 



66 CI Cloub of XDttnesses. 

J 49 I AM heartily glad to witness your 
■ veneration for a Book which, to 
say nothing of its holiness or author- 
ity, contains more specimens of genius 
and taste than any other volume in 
existence. 

— Walter Savage Landor. 
1775-1864. 



I 5° THE Bible is the Book of life, writ- 
ten for the instruction and edifi- 
cation of all ages and nations. No 
man who has felt its divine beauty 
and power would exchange this one 
volume for all the literature of the 
world. — Johann Peter Lange. 

1 802-1 884. 



I 5 I IN morality there are books enough 
written, both by ancient and modern 
philosophers; but the morality of the 
Gospel doth so exceed them all, that 
to give a man a full knowledge of 
true morality I shall send him to no 
other book than the New Testament. 
1632-1704. — John Locke. 



CI Clouo of IDttnesses. 67 

*5 2 1^ AN can weary himself in any 

■ ■ secular affair, but diligently to 
search the Scripture is to him tedious 
and burdensome. Few covet to be 
mighty in the Scriptures, though con- 
vinced their great concern is en- 
veloped in them. — Ibid. 

x 53 I CAN not attempt to describe this 

■ moral power of Holy Scripture in 
language. I dare not hope to add 
anything to the image of the text 
(Hebrews iv, 12, 13). The joints and 
the marrow of the human soul and 
spirit — the most complex interdepend- 
ences of passion and thought and 
purpose and action, and the vital cen- 
ter and home of the moral life — both 
these the Word of God probes and 
severs and lays bare. It is just this 
dissecting power, this keen penetra- 
tion of the Scriptural record, which 
is its most wonderful moral feature. 
I have read in other books many wise 
and beautiful reflections on the rela- 
tions of God and man, on life and 
death, on time and eternity; many 
lofty precepts and salutary rules for 



68 <X Cloub of XDttnesses. 



the guidance of human conduct — much 
of all kinds which instructs, improves, 
elevates. I have read such with deep 
thankfulness; and I believe that all 
light, whatever it may be, comes from 
the great Father of lights. But in no 
other book, unless its inspiration has 
been derived from this Book, do I 
find the same delicate discrimination 
between the real and the seeming in 
things moral, the same faculty of 
piercing through the crust of outward 
conduct, and revealing the hidden 
springs of action, of stripping off all 
conventional disguises, of separating 
mixed motives, with their contradic- 
tory elements of good and evil. This 
analyzing, dissecting moral power is 
the logical attribute of the Written 
Word. 

— Joseph Barber Lightfoot, 
Bishop of Durham, in Cambridge Ser- 
1828- 1 889. mons. 

154 ITINGDOMS may be moved, thrones 
•• pass away, generations go down 
to the valley of death, customs change, 
languages alter, but so long as the 



CL £lou6 of IDttnesses. 69 
+ 

earth endureth, the morality, doc- 
trines, and precepts of the Bible 
shall continue among men. In vain 
is the cry against it, bootless the toil 
to make it obsolete, rash and foolish 
the attempt to turn it into ridicule ; 
it is surrounded by a wall of fire, 
watched over by that eye which 
flashes destruction on its foes. 

— William Leask, 
"Beauties of the Bible," p. 303. Par- 
tridge & Co., London, 2d Ed. 



155 B 11 ^ the child is not allowed to re " 

*^ ject its primer because the con- 
junction of letters into words, and 
words into sentences, is a mystery; 
and we are not in the habit of tossing 
away a rose in disdain because we are 
ignorant concerning the mysteries of 
its life, its velvet texture, its colors, 
and its delicious fragrance; on the 
contrary, these all give it a sort of 
sacred attraction, as if it must have 
bloomed originally in the garden of 
the Lord. So the veiled mysteries of 
the Bible are interwoven with its tex- 



70 (X (Ooub of tDitnesses. 

ture, and impart to it a sacred beauty, 
of which without them it would have 
been destitute. — Ibid., p. 17. 

156 THE astonishing variety of subjects 
in the Bible may be thus con- 
densed; History, like a picture, re- 
producing an extensive landscape ; bi- 
ography, immortalizing certain minds 
and retaining their duplicates upon 
the earth for the imitation or warn- 
ing of subsequent generations ; proph- 
ecy, anticipating the world's future; 
doctrines, which are clustered in 
the moral firmament, deep as the 
nature of Deity and resplendent with 
the luster of his brightness; precepts, 
which find their way direct to the 
heart of man; denunciations, which 
impress the soul with awful feelings ; 
appeals, which demonstrate the Di- 
vine solicitude ; promises, which pour 
the warm love of a Father's heart 
upon burdened souls; epistles, in 
which the thoughts of one man 
are familiarly given to another: 
and poetry, in which the hallelu- 
jahs of heaven are brought down to 



(X Cloub of Witnesses. 71 



earth, and the grand future of the 
Church and the world is sung in 
strains of rapture and bursts of mag- 
nificent imager}^, such as never yet 
issued from uninspired pen. 

—Ibid., p. 7. 



157 TTHERH are no songs comparable 
* to the songs of Zion, no orations 
equal to those of the prophets, and 
no politics like those which the Scrip- 
tures teach. — John Milton. 
1608-1675. 



158 IT is not hard for any man who hath 
* a Bible in his hand to borrow good 
words and holy sayings in abundance. 

—Ibid. 



159 WHOEVER would acquire a knowl- 
** edge of pure English must study 
King James's version of the Scrip- 
tures. 
— Thomas Babington : 
1 800-1 859. (Lord Macauiay.) 



72 (X dloub of HMtnesses. 

1 60 £*>£ the time when the odious style 
" which deforms the writings of 
Hall and of L,ord Bacon was almost 
universal, had appeared that stupen- 
dous work, the English Bible, a Book 
which, if everything else in our lan- 
guage should perish, would alone 
suffice to show the whole extent of 
its beauty and power. — Ibid. 

161 If i s certain, certain on the confes. 
* sion of its enemies, that a pure and 
high morality is to be gathered only 
from the pages of the Bible. 

— Henry Melville, 
Chaplain-in-ordinary to Queen Victoria. 

162 1¥#B are persuaded that there is no 

** book by the perusal of which the 
mind is so much strengthened and so 
much enlarged as it is by the perusal 
of the Bible. —Ibid. 

163 THE Bible furnishes the only fitting 

* vehicle to express the thoughts 
that overwhelm us when contemplat- 
ing the stellar universe. 

1809-1862. — O. M. Mitchell. 



(X (£lou5 of tPttnesses. 73 



164 THE Bible makes everything- speak 

' for God. God, in these last days, 
has made everything speak for the 
Bible. Even the stone has cried 
out of the wall, and the beam out 
of the timber has answered it, "that 
prophecy came not in old time by the 
will of man, but holy men of God 
spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost." 

— Herbert W. Morris, 
" Testimony of the Ages," p. 5. 

165 1Y/HEN you write to me, tell me 

the meanings of Scripture; one 
gem from that ocean is worth all the 
pebbles of earthly streams. 

— Robert Murray McCheyne. 
1813-1843. 

166 I HAVE always found in my sci- 

entific studies that, when I could 
get the Bible to say anything upon 
the subject, it afforded me a firm plat- 
form to stand upon, and a round in 
the ladder by which I could safely 
ascend. 
— Lieut. Matthew Fontaine Maury. 

1806-1873. 



74 <3 <£loub of tDttnesses. 



167 THE Bible is the Word of God— 
' with all the peculiarities of man 
and all the authority of God. 

— Professor Murphy. 



168 ^ P HB vigor of our spiritual life will 
™ be in exact proportion to the 
place held by the Word in our life and 
thoughts. I can solemnly state this 
from the experience of fifty-four 
years. The first three years after con- 
version I neglected, comparatively, 
the Word of God. Since the time 
I began to search it diligently the 
blessing has been wonderful. I have 
read since then the Bible through one 
hundred times, and each time with in- 
creasing delight. When I begin it 
afresh, it always seems like a new 
book to me. Since July, 1820, I can 
not tell you how great has been the 
blessing from consecutive, diligent, 
daily study. I look upon it as a lost 
• day when I have not had a good time 
over the Word of God. 
1805 — — George Mulder. 



(X Cloub of IDttnesses. 75 
•♦• 

169 pRECISELY so has it been with 
these latent scientific prophecies 
or anticipations of the Word of God, 
of which we have been speaking, 
which seem to have been so deeply 
imbedded in the sacred text that the 
world has not seen them hitherto, nor, 
indeed, could see them now, were it 
not that our advancing science is re- 
vealing them. The geologic prophe- 
cies, though they might have been 
read, could not be understood till 
the fullness of the time had come. 
And it is only as the fullness of the 
time comes, in the brighter light of 
increasing scientific knowledge, that 
these grand old oracles of the Bible, so 
apparently simple, but so marvelously 
pregnant with meaning, stand forth 
at once cleared of all erroneous hu- 
man glosses, and vindicated as the in- 
spired testimonies of Jehovah. 
1802-1856. — Hugh Miller. 



170 INDEED, it is only in the Bible that 
we find a large, free, and unpreju- 
diced history, for the reason that it 



76 (X <£lou6 of JPttnesses. 

is taught incidentally. When we read 
Hume, we read Toryism ; or Macaulay, 
Whiggism; and thus nearly all his- 
tory is shot through with human prej- 
udice, and wears the limitations of a 
single mind. But the Bible simply re- 
flects the ages ; they shine through 
its pages by their own light. And, 
above all, it gives us the secret of his- 
tory ; it tells us why and for what end 
the nations have existed, and shows 
us whither they are tending. And 
this is what a true student of history 
desires to learn — not how the forces 
were marshaled at Waterloo, but by 
what force and toward what goal hu- 
manity is moving. 

— Theodore T. Hunger, 
1830 — In the Christian Union. 



171 ifl ND Wm thiS ° ld Bible ° f King 
" James's version continue to be 

held in highest reverence? Speaking 

from a literary point of view, which is 

our standpoint to-day, there can be no 

doubt that it will ; nor is there good 

reason to believe that, on literary 



Ct <£loub of IDttnesses. 77 

lines, any other will ever supplant it. 
There may be versions that will be 
truer to the Greek; there may be 
versions that will be far truer to the 
Hebrew; there may be versions that 
will mend its science, that will mend 
its archaeology, and will mend its his- 
tory ; but never one, I think, which, 
as a whole, will greatly mend that 
orderly and musical and forceful flow 
of language springing from early 
English sources, chastened by Eliza- 
bethan culture and flowing out, 
freighted with Christian doctrine, 
over all lands where Saxon speech is 
uttered. Nor in saying this do I yield 
a jot to any one in respect for that 
modern scholarship which has shown 
bad renderings from the Greek, and 
possibly far worse ones from the He- 
brew. No one, it is reasonably to be 
presumed, can safely interpret doc- 
trines of the Bible without the aid of 
this scholarship and of the "higher 
criticism;" and no one will be 
henceforth fully trusted in such in- 
terpretation who is ignorant of, or 
who scorns, the recent revisions. 



78 (X Cloub of tDttnesses. 



And yet the old book, by reason of 
its strong, sweet, literary quality, 
will keep its bold on most hearts and 
minds. — Donald G. Mitchell, 

(Ik Marvel,) " In English Lands, Let- 
ters and Kings." 

1822— 



J 7 2 I FIND more sure marks of authen- 
■ ticity in the Bible than in any pro- 
fane history whatever. 

1642-1727. — Isaac Newton. 



x 73 VU*E account the Scriptures of God 
" to be the most sublime philos- 
ophy. — Ibid. 



i 74^ThB Bible begins gloriously with 
■ paradise, the symbol ol youth, 
and ends with the everlasting king- 
dom, with the holy city. The history 
of every man should be a Bible. 

— Novalis. 
Literary cognomen of Frederick von 

Hardenberg. 
1772-1801. 



(X <£Iouo of IDttnesses. 79 
.* 

175 I IKE the needle to the north pole, 
™ the Bible points to heaven. 

— R. B. Nichol. 



*7 6 MEN can not be well educated 
* ■ without the Bible. It ought, 
therefore, to hold the chief place in 
every situation of learning through- 
out Christendom; and I do not know 
of a higher service that could be ren- 
dered to this Republic than the bring- 
ing about of this desired result. 
1 773-1 866. — Eliphlalet Nott. 



*77 dVhh systems of morality are fine. 
" The gospel alone has exhibited 
a complete assemblage of the prin- 
ciples of morality divested of all ab- 
surdity. — Napoleon I. 
1 768-1 82 1. 



I78 B OOK uni( i ue! wh ° but God 

*^ could produce that idea of per- 
fection, equalry exclusive and orig- 
inal ? — Ibid. 



80 (X Cloub of IDitnesses. 
»* 

x 79 THE Bible contains a complete se- 
* ries of facts, and of historical 
men, to explain time and eternity, 
such as no other religion has to offer. 
Everything in it is grand and worthy 
of God. Even the impious them- 
selves have never dared to deny the 
sublimity of the Gospel, which in- 
spires them with a sort of compulsory 
veneration. — Ibid. 



1 80 THE Gospel is not merely a book, 

it is a living power — a Book sur- 
passing all others. I never omit 
to read it, and every day with the 
same pleasure. Nowhere is to be 
found such a series of beautiful ideas 
and admirable moral maxims, which 
pass before us like the battalions of 
a celestial army. The soul can never 
go astray with this Book for its guide. 

—Ibid. 

181 R^FORE the literature of Greece 

had been thought of, song and 
story and the noblest inspirations of 
philosophy and poetry had come into 



(X dloub of ZDttnesses. 81 



being upon the little crests of Zion 
and Moriah; the Temple had been 
there which has never faded, though 
destroyed, burned, broken down a 
dozen times, swept far from sight and 
knowledge, from the memory and 
imagination of men ; and the records 
of humanity had begun to be put 
forth in full splendor of character and 
impulse and feeling, in chronicles 
which are as fresh and living now as 
when they were the transcripts of 
the life of three thousand years ago. 
We go no farther than the heroic age 
of Hebrew genius when we name 
this date; beyond, in the midst of 
the ages, before even ancient Egypt 
had begun to engrave her rigid an- 
nals upon stone, the record goes 
back, not in hieroglyphics, but in his- 
tories of living men. A learned sect 
studies and scrutinizes with painful 
confusion of images what a great 
Rameses may or may not have done ; 
but the child of to-day wants no bet- 
ter entertainment than that story of 
Joseph and his brethren, which is told 
in every language, and never fails to 
6 



82 Ct (Lloub of JPttnesses. 

touch the simple heart. Before Ho- 
mer had begun his primitive minstrel 
strain to celebrate the fights and wiles 
of the chiefs and kings, Isaiah had 
risen to the highest heights of poetry, 
had opened the dim gates of Hades, 
and had revealed, on the other hand, 
a dazzling glimpse of a heaven in 
which one God sat upon a throne of 
light and judged and tried the spirits 
of men. There is no such record in 
all the histories. The Psalms which 
began with David breathe forth the 
deepest emotions of our race to-day. 
The wisdom which, throughout all 
the tenacious Hast, bears the name of 
Solomon, has never been outpassed 
by any successor. And when we de- 
scend the course of the ages and come 
to a still more glorious and wonder- 
ful history, it is Jerusalem still which 
is the scene both of tragedy and tri- 
umph, of the greatest and most won- 
derful life which was ever lived among 
men. 

— Margaret Wilson Oliphant, 
1828 — In "Jerusalem." 



CI Cloub of tDttnesses. 83 



182 ^P*HE pure and noble, the graceful 
■ and dignified simplicity of lan- 
guage is nowhere in such perfection 
as in the Scriptures. 

1 688- 1 744. — Alexander Pope, 



183 1 N a word, destroy this volume, and 
* you take from us at once every- 
thing which prevents existence be- 
coming of all curses the greatest ; you 
blot out the sun, dry up the ocean, 
and take away the atmosphere of the 
moral world; and degrade man to a 
situation from which he may look 
up with envy to that of the brutes 
that perish. — Edward Payson, 

1783-1827. 



184 C CARCELY can we fix our eyes 

upon a single passage in this won- 
derful Book which has not afforded 
comfort and instruction to thousands, 
and been met with tears of penitential 
sorrow or grateful joy drawn from 
eyes that will weep no more. 

—Ibid. 



84 CI Cloub of UHtnesses. 



185 THE answer to the Shaster is India; 

■ the answer to Confucianism is 
China; the answer to the Koran is 
Turkey; the answer to the Bible is 
the Christian civilization of Protest- 
ant Europe and America. 

1811-1884. — Wendell Phillips. 

186 r^OST wondrous book! bright can- 
■ ■ die of the Lord! 

Star of eternity ! the only star 

By which the bark of man could nav- 
igate 

The sea of life, and gain the coast of 
bliss 

Securely. — Robert Pollok. 

1798-1827. 

^T^HIS lamp from off the everlasting 

■ throne 

Mercy took down, and in the night 
of time, 

Stood casting on the dark her gra- 
cious bow, 

And evermore beseeching men, with 
tears 

And earnest sighs, to hear, believe, 
and live. — Ibid. 



CI Cloub of HHtnesses. 85 
+ 

188 THIS Book, this holy Book, on 

* every line 

Marked with the seal of high di- 
vinity — 

On every leaf bedewed with drops of 
love 

Divine, and with the eternal heraldry 

And signature of God Almighty 
stamped 

From first to last. — Ibid. 

189 THE Bible goes equally to the 

■ cottage of the plain man and the 
palace of the king. It is woven into 
literature, and it colors the talk of 
the street. The bark of the mer- 
chant can not sail to sea without it. 
No ship of war goes to the conflict 
but the Bible is there. It enters 
men's closets, mingling in all grief 
and cheerfulness of life. 

1810-1871. — Theodore Parker. 



190 COME thousand famous writers 
* come up in this century, to be for- 
gotten in the next. But the silver 
cord of the Bible is not loosed, nor 



86 (X Cloub of IPttnesses. 



its golden bowl broken, though 
time chronicles his tens of centuries 
passed by. — /did. 



191 y ou can trace the P ath of tlie Bi ' 
■ ble across the world from the 
day of Pentecost to this day. As a 
river springs up in the heart of a 
sandy continent, having its father in 
the skies; as the stream rolls on, 
making, in that arid waste, a belt of 
verdure wherever it turns its way, 
creating palm - groves and fertile 
plains, where the smoke of the cot- 
tage curls up at eventide, and marble 
cities send the gleam of their splen- 
dor far into the sky : such has been 
the course of the Bible on earth. 
There is not a boy on all the hills of 
New England ; not a girl born in the 
filthiest cellar which disgraces a cap- 
tal in Europe, and cries to God against 
the barbarism of modern civiliza- 
tion; not a boy nor a girl all Chris- 
tendom through, but their lot is made 
better by that great Book. — Ibid. 



(X (£Iou6 of UMtnesses. 87 
4. 

J 9 2 I HAVE always felt atttached to this 
' Divine production, even when I 
have not believed myself one of its 
avowed followers. With the love of 
God and mankind, it inspired me also 
with a veneration for justice and an 
abhorrence of wickedness, along with 
a desire of pardoning the wicked. 
1789-1854. — Silvio Peluco. 

193 I LOVE the Bible. I read it every 
* day; and the more I read it, the 
more I love it. There are some peo- 
ple who do not love the Bible. I do 
not understand them. I do not un- 
derstand such people, but I love it; 
I love its simplicity, and I love its very 
repetitions and reiterations of truth. 
As I said, I read it daily, and the more 
I read it, the more I love it. 

— The Emperor Dom Pedro II., 
In conversation with Rev. J. C. Fletcher, 
reported in the N. Y. Evangelist. 
1825-1891. 

1 94 THERE is no one book extant in 

* any one language, or in any coun- 
try, which can in any degree be com- 



88 Ci <£lou6 of IDitnesses. 

pared with the Bible for antiquity, 
for authority, for the importance, the 
dignity, the variety, and the curiosity 
of the matter it contains. 

— Beilby Porteus, 
i 73 i- i 808. Bishop of London. 

J 95 •T'HE Scriptures, having been 
■ written at different periods and 
in divers languages, requiring for 
their interpretation the aid of knowl- 
edge that is always increasing, not 
only may, but must give forth fresh 
light with each new century. 

1811-1892. — Noah Porter, 

From Sermon on " Religious Progress," 
in the Independent. 

!96 /IFTBR reading the doctrines of 
" Plato, Socrates, or Aristotle, we 
feel that the specific difference be- 
tween their words and Christ's is the 
difference between an inquiry and a 
revelation. — Joseph Parker. 

*97 I AM impressed by the abundant 
■ evidence that your style has been 
unconsciously formed by your famil- 



CI <£loub of ZDttnesses. 89 



iarity with our English Bible, which 
has a unique worth in shaping a dic- 
tion equally pure, dignified, easy, 
graceful, and euphonious. Did I 
know nothing about you personally, 
I should infer from your books that 
you have that thorough acquaintance 
with the ipsissima verba of our Bi- 
ble, which was much more common 
in your and in my earlier days than I 
fear it is among even the sincere Chris- 
tians of a younger generation. I am 
accustomed to say to young men who 
are ambitious to write well: "Study 
the English Bible. It will be worth 
more to you than all oral or written 
rules, and than all other examples of 
English composition." 

— Andrew Preston Peabody, 

To an American Author. 
1811-1893. 

198 ^»HE most highly-valued treasure of 
■ every family library, and that most 
frequently and lovingly made use of, 
should be the Holy Scriptures. 

— Plenary Council, 
At Baltimore,- 1884. 



90 (X <£lou& of tDitnesses. 



x 99 ^OME words excell in vertue, and 

^ discover 

A rare condition, thrice repeated 
over. 

Our Saviour thrice was tempted; 
thrice represt 

The assaulting tempter with thrice 
Scriptus est. 

If thou wouldst keep thy soule se- 
cure from harme, 

Thou know'st the words : It is a po- 
tent charme. 

God's Sacred Word is like the Lampe 

of Day 
Which softens wax, but makes ob- 

dure the clay ; 
It either melts the heart, or more ob- 

dures ; 
It never falls in vain : It wounds or 

cures. 
1 592-1 644. — Francis Quarles, 
In " Divine Fancies," 1641 A. D. 



200 1 MUST confess the majesty of the 
■ Scriptures astonishes me. 

— Jean Jacques Rousseau. 
1712-1778. 



CI Cloub of tDttnesses. 91 



HOW petty are the books of the 
philosphers, with all their pomp, 
compared to the Gospels ! —Ibid. 



202 ^ BAD heart is the great objection 
" against the Holy Book. 
1648-1680. — John Wilmot, 

Earl of Rochester. 



203 CHRISTIANITY is the only true 
^ and perfect religion, and in pro- 
portion as mankind adopt its prin- 
ciples and obey its precepts, they 
will be wise and happy. And a bet- 
ter knowledge of this religion is to 
be acquired by reading the Bible than 
in any other way. 

1741-1813. — Benjamin Rush. 



20 4 I WILI/ answer for it, the longer 
■ you read the Bible, the more you 
will like it. It will grow sweeter 
and sweeter; and the more you get 
into the spirit of it, the more you 
will get into the Spirit of Christ. 
1 7 14-1795. — William Romaine. 



92 CL Cloub of IDitnesses. 



20 5 «T*HIS Book has held spell-bound 

■ the hearts of nations in a way 
in which no single Book has ever 
held men before. States have been 
founded on its principles. Men hold 
the Bible in their hands when they 
prepare to give solemn evidence affect- 
ing life. 

— Frederick W. Robertson. 
1816-1853. 

206 |p a n the books were placed in one 
■ library, and this single One set on 
a table in the middle of it, and a 
stranger were told that this Book, af- 
firmed to be for the most part the work 
of a number of unlearned and ob- 
scure men, belonging to a despised 
nation called the Jews, and had drawn 
upon itself for its exposure, con- 
futation, and destruction, this multi- 
tude of volumes, — I imagine he would 
be inclined to say : " Then, I presume, 
this little Book was annihilated long 
ago; though how it could be needful 
to write a thousandth part so much for 
any such purpose I can not compre- 
hend ; for if the book be what these 



Ci Cloub of IDttnesses. 93 



authors say, surely it should not be 
difficult to show it to be so; and if 
so, what wonderful madness to write 
all these volumes!" How surprised 
would he then be to learn that they 
were felt not to be enough ; that sim- 
ilar works were being multiplied every 
day, and never more actively than at 
the present time. 

— Henry Rodgers, 
"Superhuman Origin of the Bible," p. 254. 

207 ^ r HB Book which has given them 

■ all their ephemeral renown, 
seems alone untouched by time. It 
is like some old oak which has seen 
the harvest of a thousand years' 
springs ripen and fall beneath the 
sickle. — Ibid., p. 279. 

208 THE Bible is not such a Book as 

■ man would have made if he 
could, or could have made if he would 
have done so. — Ibid., p. 5. 

209 TO my early knowledge of the Bi- 

■ ble I owe the best part of my 
taste in literature and the most pre- 



94 CI Cloub of IDttnesses. 



cious and, on the whole, the one es- 
sential part of my education, 

1819 — — John Ruskin. 

210 ■ HAVE been blamed for the famil- 

' iar application of its sacred words. 
I am grieved to have given pain by 
so doing ; but my excuse must be my 
wish that those words were made the 
ground of every argument and the test 
of every action. We have them not 
often enough upon our lips, nor 
deeply enough in our memories, nor 
loyally enough in our lives. The 
snow, the vapor, and the stormy wind 
fulfill His word. Are our acts and 
thoughts lighter and wilder than 
these, that we should forget it ? 

—Ibid. 

2i*< AFTER our chapters (from two to 

" three a day, according to their 
length), the first thing after breakfast 
(and no interruptions from servants 
allowed, none from visitors, who 
either joined in the reading or had to 
stay up-stairs, and none from any vis- 
iting or excursions, except real trav- 



& Cloub of IDtinesses. 95 



eling), I had to learn a few verses by 
heart, or repeat, to make sure I had 
not lost something of what was 
already known; and, with the chap- 
ters thus gradually possessed from 
the first to the last, I had to learn 
the whole body of the fine old Scotch 
paraphrases, which are good, melodi- 
ous, and forceful verses, and to which, 
together with the Bible itself, I owe 
the first cultivation of my ear in 
sound." Mr. Ruskin prints his mother's 
list of the chapters, "with which, 
thus learned, she established my soul 
in life." It is as follows : Exodus, 
chapters xv, xvi ; 2 Samuel i, from the 
seventeenth verse to the end ; 1 Kings 
viii; Psalms xxii, xxxiii, xc, xci, ciii, 
cxii, cxix, cxxxix; Proverbs chapters 
ii, iii, viii, xii; Isaiah lviii; Matthew, 
chapters v, vi, vii; Acts xxvi; 1 Co- 
rinthians, chapters xiii, xv ; James iv ; 
Revelation, chapters v, vi. And 
truly Mr. Ruskin says : " Though I 
have picked up the elements of a lit- 
tle further knowledge — in mathemat- 
ics, meteorology, and the like, in after 
life — and owe not a little to the teach- 



96 CX dlouo of XDiinesses. 



ing of many people, this material 
installation of my mind in that prop- 
erty of chapters I count very confi- 
dently the most precious, and, on the 
whole, the one essential part of my ed- 
ucation." John Ruskin, 

In "Autobiography." 

212 WALTER SCOTT and Alexander 
W Pope were the reading of my 
own early election; but my mother 
forced me to read the Bible from Gen- 
esis to Apocalypse, and to that disci- 
pline, patient, accurate, resolute, I owe 
not only a knowledge of the Bible, 
but the best part of my taste in lit- 
erature. . . . Knowing by heart 
the hundred and nineteneth Psalm, the 
Sermon on the Mount, and other places 
of Holy Scripture, it was not possible 
for me to write entirely superficial 
English. — Ibid., in " Fors Clavigerse." 

213 I SEE in your columns, as in other 
■ journals, more and more buzzing 
and fussing about what M. Renan 
has found the Bible to be, or Mr. 
Huxley not to be, or the bishops that 



& Cloub of HMtnesses. 97 



it might be, or the school board that 
it must n't be, etc. Let me tell your 
readers who care to know, in the 
fewest possible words what it is. It 
is the grandest group of writings ex- 
istent in the rational world, put into 
the grandest language of the ra- 
tional world, in the first strength of 
the Christian faith, by an entirely 
wise and kind saint, St. Jerome ; trans- 
lated afterward with beauty and felic- 
ity into every language of the Christian 
world; and the guide, since so trans- 
lated, of all the arts and acts of that 
world which have been noble, fortu- 
nate, and happy. And by consulta- 
tion of it honestly, on any serious 
business, you may always learn— a long 
while before your Parliament finds 
out — what you should do in such 
business, and be directed perhaps be- 
sides to work more serious than you 
had thought of. 

—Ibid., in the Pall Mall Gazette. 



98 Ci Cloub of JDttnesses. 

.* 

214 BATHER of Mercies, in thy Word 

■ What endless glory shines ! 
Forever be thy name adored 

For these celestial lines. 
1 71 7-1 778. — Anne Steele. 

215 I KNOW that what I read and pos- 

■ sess in the Word will remain when 
the world passes .away, and that its 
slightest sentence will prove a better 
dying pillow than all else that man 
could conceive or possess. 

1 800-1 862. — Rudolf Stier. 

2i6 £"\NE Book alone has outlasted 
^^ many generations, in all nations 
equally, and that is the Bible; and 
this is because of its exceeding 
breadth — because it embraces every 
variety and element of thought, and 
every phase of society; above all, be- 
cause it embodies in every part the 
moral commandment of God, which 
endures forever in heaven, and which 
applies not to one condition of life 
only, but to all. 

— Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, 
1815-1881. Dean of Westminster. 



(X Cloub of IDltnesses. 99 



21 7 RUT we ou ght not to tremble too 
much for the ark of God; it is 
God's ark, and he will take charge of 
it. This is only an episode in the 
history of the Bible ; the providence 
of God is watching over it; and we 
may be very sure that when it is over, 
the Bible, being better understood, 
will be seen more clearly than ever 
to be suited to the deepest wants of 
man, and fitted to be the torch which 
guides him along the pathway of 
progress. — James Stalker, 

75th Anniversary Amer. Bible Society, 



218 ■T'HE whole hope of human prog- 
* ress is suspended on the ever- 
growing influence of the Bible. 
1 801-1872. — William H. Seward. 



2I 9 MOBODY ever outgrows Scripture. 
The Book widens and deepens 
with our years. 

— Charles H. Spurgeon. 
1834-1892. 



ioo d (Eloub of XDttnesses. 

220 p VEN the style of the Scriptures is 
■■ more than human. — Steele. 

221 ^HE popular reverence for the Bi- 

■ ble is also strong, and it extends 
to every copy of the printed Book, 
and includes even those who reject 
the supernatural authority of Scrip- 
ture. At least so far as the exhibition 
of outward and formal respect is con- 
cerned, they are all of one mind. 
The various Bible societies are care- 
ful to put copies of the Scriptures 
in the reading-rooms and bedrooms 
of hotels and upon all ships and 
steamers. It can not be said that 
those volumes give evidences of hav- 
ing been extensively read, but they 
are never defaced. The most flippant 
treat the Holy Bible with instinctive 
and distinctive respect. 

— New York Sun. 

222 jjnIJKE other books, the Bible has 
^ neither preface nor introduction. 
Nor has it definitions, postulates, 
axioms, or elementary theorems on 
which to build its science of the- 



G, (Eloub of tDttnesses. 101 
.+ 

ology or to prepare its students for its 
higher revelations or developments. 
Its first words bring us face to face 
with eternity and divinity. 

Matthew Simpson, 
Lecture : Majesty and Holiness of Bible. 

God's Word, Man's Light and Guide. 

Lectures before N. Y. S. S. Association, 

American Tract Society. 

1811-1884. 



22 3 I HAVE surveyed most of the learn- 
■ ing that is among the children of 
men, yet at this moment I recall noth- 
ing in them on which to rest my soul 
save one from the sacred Scriptures 
which rises much on my mind: <f The 
grace of God which bringeth salva- 
tion hath appeared unto all men." 
— John Selden, 
1 584-1 658. To Archbishop Usher. 



224 



lfIKWKl3 merely as a literary pro- 
* duction, the Bible is a marvelous 
Book, and without a rival. All the 
libraries of theology, philosophy, his- 
tory, antiquities, poetry, law, and 



io2 (X Cloub of HMtnesses. 



policy would not furnish material 
enough for so rich a treasure of the 
choicest gems of human genius, wis- 
dom, and experience. 

1819-1893. — Philip Schaff. 



22 5 HTHE translators of the Bible were 
■ makers of our English style much 
fitter for that work than any we see 
in our present writings. The which 
is owing to the simplicity that runs 
through the whole. 

— Jonathan Swift, 
Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. 
1667-1745. 



226 I j£f us ding with a holy zeal to the 
"■ Bible, and the Bible only, as the 
religion of Protestants. Let us pro- 
claim, with Milton, that neither tradi- 
tions, nor councils, nor canons of visi- 
ble Church, much less edicts of any 
civil magistrate or civil session, but the 
Scriptures only, can be the final judge 
or rule. — Joseph Story, 

Justice Supreme Court, U. S. 
1779-1845. 



CX (£loub of ZDttnesses. 103 

■♦■ 

22 7 IN the whole compass of poetry 
* there is nothing more poetical, 
more musical, more thrilling, and, in 
some passages, more full of lofty in- 
spiration than the Psalms of David. 
— Henry Stephanus. 



228 HE who has once gained this 
* * broader view of the Bible as the 
development of a course of history 
itself, guided and inspired by Jeho- 
vah, will not be disconcerted by the 
confused noises of the critic. His 
faith in the Word of God lies deeper 
than any difficulties or flaws upon 
the surface of the Bible. He will not 
be disturbed by seeing any theory of 
its mechanical formation or school- 
book infallibility broken to fragments 
under the repeated blows of modern 
investigation. The water of life will 
flow from the rock which the scholar 
strikes with his rod. 

— Newman Smyth, 
" Old Faiths in New Lights," p. 59. 
1843— 



104 (X (£lou5 of IDttnesses. 
.+. 

22 9 T'HB Bible has been the potent in- 
■ terpreter of the spiritual instincts 
of a considerable portion of our race, 
giving form and voice and force to 
their thoughts of God, of duty, of 
judgment and the life to come 
throughout the length and breadth 
of the Christian world. 

— Vance Smith, 
11 The Bible and its Theology," p. 300. 

2 3° VU HEN you can prove to me that 
■■ man has built the mountains of 
brick-work and has covered the earth 
with a mud which he has manufac- 
tured for soil, then you may prove to 
me that the Bible, with its oneness 
and variety, its production extending 
over fifteen hundred years, with its 
last verse answering to its first across 
the dreary drift of ages, has come to 
us from man. 

182 1 — — Richard S. Storrs. 

2 3 x ^I,MOST every feeling finds a voice 
*■ in the Psalms. But here are not 
their only expressions. The prophe- 
cies contain them. They break upon 
us through scores of narratives and 



CI Cloub of IDitnesses. 105 



in hundreds of incidents. And there 
is not a note of human emotion, 
from the plaint of despondency or 
the wail of despair up to the noblest 
Christian war-hymn — yea, up to the 
very Te Deum of saints celebrating 
the final attainment of heaven — that 
is not somewhere sounded in the 
Bible. —Ibid. 

Sermon : Jubilee American Bible So- 
ciety, 1866. 

2 3 2 TTHK most learned, acute, and dili- 
■ gent student can not in the long- 
est life obtain an entire knowledge of 
this one volume. The more deeply 
he works the mine, the richer and more 
abundant he finds the ore ; new light 
continually beams from this source of 
heavenly knowledge, to .direct the 
conduct and illustrate the works of 
God and the ways of men; and he 
will at last leave the world confessing 
that the more he studied the Scrip- 
tures the fuller conviction he had of 
his own ignorance and of their inesti- 
mable value. ■— Walter Scott. 
1771-1832. 



106 d dloub of tDitnesses. 
,+■ 

233 WITHIN this awful volume lies 
" The mystery of mysteries ; 
Happiest they of human race 
To whom their God has given grace 
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, 
To lift the latch, to force the way ; 
But better had they ne'er been born, 
That read to doubt, or read to scorn. 
—Ibid. 
"The Monastery. "' 



2 34 P*ANY a fathom dark and deep 
■ ■ I have laid the Book to sleep , 
Ethereal fires around it glowing- 
Ethereal music ever flowing — 
The sacred pledge of Heaven. 
All things revere, 
Each in his sphere, 
Save man for whom 'twas given; 
Lend thy hand and thou shalt spy 
Things ne'er seen by mortal eye. 
—Ibid. 
"The Monastery." 



CI (Eloub of IDttnesses. 107 
, + . 

"THERE IS BUT ONE BOOK." 

[From the last words of Sir Walter Scott.] 

235 pETCH me the Buke, dear Lock- 
* hart, 

An' gie me ane sweet ward. 
What buke ? There is nae ither, — 

The L,ife o' th' Incarnate L,ord; 
I feel the shadows creepin' ; 

My licht 's nae burnin' lang, 
Sae read frae the blessit Gospels 

A bit, chiel, ere I gang ; 
Fin' whaur He holpit the needy, 

His pity wi' His micht ! 
O, my soul 's fair hungry, IyOckhart, 

For the Livin' Bread, the nicht. 

I think o' the dear disciples 

Sae tassit on the sea, 
An' the wards He spak' tae Simon, — 

I ken they 'd comfort me ; 
Tell o' the chitterin' sparrows, — 

" Nae wan o' them can' fa' ;" 
Tell hoo He callit the bairnies, — 

The dearest thocht o' a', 
Read owre hoo the ravin' tempest 

Seekit silence i' the deep; 
Sae the surges i' my bosom 

Are croonin' a' tae sleep; 



io8 Ci Cloub of IDitnesses. 



Ye maun catch the roll o' Jordan 

F His wards tae the Pharisee, 
But ye '11 hear Him prayin' dearie, 

F the sough o' Galilee ; 
Dinnah fash 'bout Judas kisses; 

Nae greet i' the garden dim, 
But joy hoo the dyin' beggar 

Foun' paradise wi Him ; 
Nae hent o' Thamas dootin', 

Nae ward hoo Peter fell ; 
It grie's me, sair, — their weakness 

Wha ken't oor Lord sae weel ; 

Read o' the walk tae Emmaus 

That long an' tearfu' day, 
An lat oor hearts burn, L,ockhart, 

As we gang the countrie way ; 
Pluck me ane lily, L,ockhart, 

A' siller-dew't an' sweet; 
I speer the rose o' Sharon, 

An' smell the growin' wheat ; 
Lat's join the throngin', dearie, 

An' wait i' the wee bit ships 
For the ward, like beads o' honey, 

That fa' frae His haly lips. 

Hoo sad the Gospels, Lockhart, 
Wi' his wand'rin' hameless life ! 



CI Clouo of tDttnesses. 109 



But there 's ane grief fetches comfort, 

Ane rest that comes o' strife : 
Noo tak' me, kin', gude Eockhart, — 

Aye tenner-true tae me ! — 
Oot wi' the dear disciples, 

"As far 's tae Bethany;" 
I sair need rest, belov'd, 

An' the licht 's a-wearin' dim ; 
But heaven's nae far fra Bethany, 

An' sune I '11 be wi' Him. 

— Agnes E. Mitchell. 

236 ftOOD heaven, were the truths of 
^* the Book prevalent in the hearts 
of men, should we be disturbed and 
frightened as we are day by day by 
those gigantic frauds that are burst- 
ing out in every community, and 
which lead us to believe that all hon- 
esty in trade, all honesty in public 
life, all honesty in private life, have 
left the world forever? Is it unsuited 
to the times in which we live, when, 
if its holy precepts and its Divine 
commands had been listened to, we 
should not have these gigantic evils? 
— The 7Th Earl of Shaftesbury, 

Life of. Vol. I, p. 7. 



no d Cloub of IDttnesscs. 



2 37 /%H ! but now they come and tell 
" us that the Bible is effete ; that it 
is worn out ; that it can do nothing, and 
that we must now have some new in- 
fluence, some new principle, by which 
to regulate and guide man. Effete! 
Indeed, I should like to know whether 
it is effete at this moment in India. 
Is it effete in the effect, lately begun, 
to be produced in China ? Is it effete 
in the islands of the Pacific Ocean ? 
Is it effete in Madagascar? Is it 
effete in Italy? You see what a 
country Italy has now become ; you 
see how the Italians are now grasping 
at the Word of God, and although 
they have not thrown off the tram- 
mels of the Church of Rome, they 
have imbibed the first principles, 
whereby their conduct in public and 
private life should be guided. The 
Bible lies at the root of their freedom, 
and they know it well enough to 
make it the basis of their hopes and 
fears. That is the Book that will 
guide them. — Ibid., Vol. I, p. 7. 



Ct Cloub of tDttnesses. in 

•* 

238 ^ O the Xeologists themselves think 
■^ it effete? If so, why do they 
pass their nights, why do they 
sweat and toil over the midnight 
lamp, for the sole purpose of destroy- 
ing a Book that is so effete that, if 
left to itself, would soon die or be- 
come an object of general contempt? 
They do not think it effete. They 
know its power upon the heart and 
the conscience. They know that, if 
left to itself, that good old Book must 
work its own way, and what they 
deny with their lips the}- confess with 
their fears. Effete? It is effete as 
Abraham was effete, when he became 
the father of many nations, when they 
sprang of one, and him as good as 
dead, as man}' as the stars for multi- 
tude and the sands upon the seashore 
innumerable. It is effete as eternity 
past, present, and future is effete. It 
is effete, and in no other sense, as God 
himself is effete — the same yesterday, 
to-day, and forever. 

—Ibid., Vol. I, p. 8. 



ii2 CL <£Ioub of IDttnesses. 
.+. 

2 39 CAVE for my daily range 

** Among the pleasant fields of Holy 

Writ, 
I might despair. 

— Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 
1809-1892. 



240 W 1 ^ 11 tlie histor y of Moses, no 
" book in the world, in point of 
antiquity, can contend. 

1630-1694. — John Tillotson, 

Archbishop of Canterbury. 



241 UOLY Scripture becomes resplend- 
* * ent, or, as one might say, incan- 
descent throughout. 

1 787-1 865. — Isaac Taylor. 



242 ^HE integrity of the records of the 
* Christian faith is substantiated by 
evidence in a tenfold proportion more 
various, copious, and conclusive than 
that which can be adduced in sup- 
port of any other ancient writings. 

—Ibid. 



(X dloub of tDitnesses. 113 

2 43 yJS the profoundest philosophy of 
" ancient Rome and Greece lighted 
her taper at Israel's altar, so the 
sweetest strains of the pagan muse 
were swept from harps attuned on 
Zion's Hill. 

— Edward Thomson. 
1810-1870. 

244 THE Bible is a thing of light, and 

■ illumines whatsoever it shines 
upon ; a thing of beauty, and adorns 
whatsoever it touches; a thing of 
life, and quickens whatsoever it comes 
in contact with. 

— W. Trail, 
" Literary Characteristics and Achieve- 
ments of the Bible." (Clergyman.) 

245 THE man of one book is always 

formidable; but when that Book 
is the Bible, he is irresistible. 
1 829-1 896. — William M. Taylor. 



■ mere theology. Its moral pre- 
cepts and ever-to-be-remembered 
stories of fidelity and self-sacrifice 



ii4 Ct Cloub of XPttnesses. 



never lose their wonted charm or 
grandeur. 

— Boston Evening Transcript, Satur- 
day, April n, 1896. 



247 ^HE present-day critical investiga- 
* tion of the Bible may in some re- 
. spects modify or change the popu- 
lar conception of it. Indeed, it has 
done so in a measure already ; but in 
so far as we can see, it has in no de- 
gree weakened the hold of the Bible 
on the conscience of Christendom. 
Nor is there the faintest sign that 
modern civilization intends to part 
with any of the essential principles 
and ideals which it has learned from 
that venerable Book. Possibly Moses 
may have made mistakes; he was 
great enough to do so. But no mis- 
take he ever made compares with 
that of those who think to elevate 
and ennoble the world by splitting 
"the ears of the groundlings" with 
coarse sneers at religion and the 
Bible. —The New York Tribune. 



Ct Clouo of IDttnesses. 115 



2 48 IMMENSELY as the literature of 
■ this country has increased in this 
century, the Bible now occupies a 
larger proportionate space in that liter- 
ature than ever it did. No Book raises 
so many inquiries or touches so many 
interests. The Bible sends the stu- 
dent to libraries and archives. To 
the Bible we owe much of the in- 
tense and spreading interest in lan- 
guages and in the originals of cus- 
toms and of peoples. It directs the 
traveler to buried cities, to the tombs 
of kings, to the records of States 
once great, and well-nigh forgotten. 
Wherever the battle of opinion is 
now the liveliest, wherever the race 
for discovery is most eager, wherever 
the earth at last reveals her buried 
history, it is to add to our knowledge 
of the sacred story, and to our under- 
standing of the sacred volume. 

— The London Times. 



249^* HE man who recreated the Ger- 
■ man language — I hardly think 
the expression too strong — was Mar- 
tin Luther. It was his fortune and 



n6 (X Cloub of IDttnesses. 



that of the world that he was so 
equally great in many directions — 
as a personal character, as a 
man of action, as a teacher and 
preacher, and finally as an author. 
No one before him, and no one for 
nearly two hundred years after him, 
saw that the German tongue must be 
sought for in the mouths of the peo- 
ple — that the exhausted expression of 
the earlier ages could not be revived, 
but that the newer, fuller, and richer 
speech, then in its childhood, must at 
once be acknowledged and adopted. 
He made it the vehicle of what was 
divinest in human language ; and those 
who are not informed of his manner 
of translating the Bible, can not ap- 
preciate the originality of his work, 
or the marvelous truth of the in- 
stinct which led him to it. 

With all his scholarship, Luther 
dropped the theological style, and 
sought among the people for phrases 
as artless and simple as those of the 
Hebrew writers. He frequented the 
market-place, the merry-making, the 
house of birth, marriage, or death 



(X <Ilou6 of XDitnesses. 117 



among the common people, in order 
to catch the fullest expression of their 
feelings in the simplest words. He 
enlisted his friends in the same serv- 
ice, begging them to note down for 
him any peculiar, sententious phrase ; 
"for," said he, "I can not use the 
words heard in castles and at courts." 
Not a sentence of the Bible was trans- 
lated until he had sought for the 
briefest, clearest, and strongest Ger- 
man equivalent to it. He writes, 
in 1530: "I have exerted myself, in 
translating, to give pure and clear 
German. And it has verily hap- 
pened that we have sought and 
questioned a fortnight, three, four 
weeks, for a single word, and yet it 
was not always found. In Job we so 
labored — Philip Melanchthon, Auro- 
gallus, and I — that in four daj^s we 
sometimes barely finished three lines. 
. . . It is well enough to plow 
when the field is cleared ; but to root 
out stock and stone, and prepare the 
ground, is what no one will." 

He illustrates his own plan of trans- 
lation by an example which is so inter- 



u8 Ci (£loub of Witnesses. 



esting that I must quote it: "We 
must not ask the men of letters in 
the L,atin language how we should 
speak German, as the asses do ; but 
we must ask the mother in the house, 
the children in the lanes, the common 
man in the market-place, and read in 
their mouths how they speak, and 
translate according thereto; then they 
understand, for they see we are speak- 
ing German to them. As when Christ 
says : Ex abundantia cordis os loquitur. 
Now if I were to follow the asses, 
they would dissect for me the letters 
and thus translate : ' Out of the super- 
abundance of the heart speaks the 
mouth.' Now tell me is that spoken 
German? No German would say 
that, unless he meant that he had too 
much of a heart, although even that 
is not correct ; for superabundance of 
heart is not German, any more than 
superabudance of house, superabun- 
dance of cooking-stove, superabun- 
dance of bench; but thus speaketh 
the mother in the house and the com- 
mon man : ' Whose heart is full, his 
mouth overflows.' That is Germanly 



CI (£loub of IDttnesses. 119 



spoken, such as I have endeavored 
to do, but alas ! not always suc- 
ceeded." 

Luther translated the Bible eighty 
years before our English version was 
produced. I do not know whether 
the English translators made any use 
of his labors, although they inclined 
toward the same plan, without follow- 
ing it so conscientiously. In regard 
to the accuracy of rendering, there 
is less difference. But in regard 
to the fullness, the strength, the ten- 
derness, the vital power of language, 
I think Luther's Bible decidedly 
superior to our own. The instinct 
of one great man is in such mat- 
ters, if not a safer, at least a more sat- 
isfactory guide than the average judg- 
ment of forty-seven men. Luther 
was a poet as well as a theologian, and 
as a poet he was able to feel, as no 
theologian could, the intrinsic differ- 
ence of spirit and character in the 
different books of the Old Testa- 
ment — not only to feel, but, through 
the sympathetic quality of the poetic 
nature, to reproduce them. These 



i2o & £lou6 of XPitnesses. 



ten years, from 1522 to 1532, which 
he devoted to the work, were not only 
years of unremitting, prayerful, con- 
scientious labor, but also of warm, 
bright, joyous, intellectual creation. 
We can only appreciate his wonder- 
ful achievement by comparing it with 
any German prose before his time. 
1825-1878. — Bayard Taylor, 
Studies in German Literature. 



2 50/|FTKR all, the Bible must be its 
" own argument and defense. The 
power of it can never be proved un- 
less it is felt. The authority of it 
can never be supported unless it is 
manifest. The light of it can never 
be demonstrated unless it shines. 

— H. J. Van Dyke. 

251 p ROM the time that, at my mother's 
* feet or on my father's knee, I first 
learned to lisp verses from the Sa- 
cred Writings, they have been my 
daily study and vigilant contempla- 
tion. — Daniel Webster. 

s 1782-1852. 



CI (£loub of tDttnesses. 121 

*• 

2521 HAVE read the Bible through 
■ many times; I now make a prac- 
tice of going through it once a year. 
It is the Book of all others for law- 
yers as well as divines; and I pity 
the man who can not find in it a rich 
supply of thought and rules for con- 
duct. — Ibid. 

2 53 1*^ Y style in language and thought 
* * is due to my early love of the 

Scriptures. — Ibid. 

254 T r HE biography of the seventh 

■ Earl of Shaftesbury contains a 
letter addressed to him by Daniel 
Webster, dated Washington, May 7, 
1840, which begins as follows: 

"Dear Lord Ashley, — I owe you 
many thanks for a kind note which I 
received at the moment of my de- 
parture from London last autumn, and 
for the present of a copy of a very 
excellent edition of the Holy Bible. 
You could have given me nothing 
more acceptable, and I shall keep it 
near me, as a valued token of your 



122 CI Cloub of U)ttnesses. 
■»■ 

regard. The older I grow, and the 
more I read the Holy Scriptures, the 
more reverence I have for them, and 
the more convinced I am that they are 
not only the best guide for the con- 
duct of this life, but the foundation 
of all hope respecting a future state 
of existence." — Ibid. 

2 55 I BEUEVE that the Bible is to be 

understood and received in the 
plain and obvious meaning of its 
passages; for I can not persuade my- 
self that a Book intended for the in- 
struction and conversion of the whole 
world should cover its true meaning 
in any such mystery and doubt that 
none but critics and philosophers can 
discover it. — Ibid. 

25 6 IF we abide by the principles taught 

in the Bible, our country will go on 
prospering and to prosper; but if we 
and our posterity neglect its instruc- 
tions and authority , no man can tell 
how sudden a catastrophe may over- 
whelm us, and bury all our glory in 
profound obscurity. — Ibid. 



d Clouo of tDttnesses. 123 
■♦■ 
2 57 PHILOSOPHICAL argument, espe- 
■ cially that drawn from the vastness 
of the universe in comparison with 
the comparative insignificance of this 
globe, has sometimes shaken my rea- 
son for the faith that is in me ; but 
my heart has always assured and re- 
assured me that the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ must be a Divine reality. 

— Ibid. 



258 ^PHB misfortunes of China seem 
* likely to bring her to a more 
teachable mood. One of the symp- 
toms of a new feeling is the accept- 
ance by the dowager empress, on the 
sixtieth anniversary of her birthday, 
of a Bible in the Chinese language, 
for which she expressed her grateful 
thanks, at the same time promising 
to read it. What is more significant 
is, that the emperor last week sent 
one of the chief officers of his house- 
hold to the Bible Society's depot, to 
purchase a copy of the Scriptures 
similar to the one presented to the 
empress. — Christian World. 



124 6 Cloub of tDitnesses. 

. ■♦■ 

2 S9^"H'E Bible is a rock of diamonds, 
■ a chain of pearls, the sword of 
the Spirit, a chart by which the Chris- 
tian sails to eternity, the map by 
which he daily walks, the sun-dial by 
which he sets his life, the balance in 
which he weighs his actions. 

1690 — T. Watson. 



T 



have the power of awakening an 
intense moral feeling in every human 
being; that they make bad men good, 
and send a pulse of healthful feeling 
through all the domestic, civil, and 
social relations ; that they teach men 
to love right and hate wrong, and seek 
each other's welfare, as children of a 
common parent; that they control 
the baleful passions of the heart, and 
thus make men proficient in self- 
government ; and, finally, that they 
teach man to aspire after conform- 
ity to a Being of infinite holiness, 
and fill him with hopes more 
purifying, exalted, and suited to 
his nature, than any other book the 



(X <£Iou6 of HMtnesses, 125 



world has ever known, — these are 
facts as incontrovertible as the laws 
of philosophy or the demonstrations 
of mathematics. 

1796- 1865. — Francis Wayland. 



2 6i l¥f K search the world for truth, we 
™ cull 

The good, the pure, the beautiful, 
From graven stone and written scroll, 
From the old flower-fields of the soul, 
And, weary seekers for the best, 
We come back laden from our quest, 
To find that all the sages said 
Is in the Book our mothers read. 
— John Greeneeaf Whittier. 
1807-1892. 



262 



IT is sheer waste of time to quarrel 
" about modes of inspiration. Let 
the Book prove its own inspiration. 
When we read it, we feel its power. 
When we give it to others, it proves 
its divineness. The flowing tide is 
with the Bible, and, as the tide rises, 
the brawling streams by its shores 
are hushed. Send on the Book, and 



i26 Ci CIouo of XDitnesses. 



see what it will do. It makes the 
savage a man. It strikes from the 
captive his chains, and makes the 
freeman more free. It fills civilized 
communities with the voices of love 
in its purity, and the pledges of friend- 
ship in its faithfulness. The Word 
that has gone forth out of God's 
mouth will prove the power of God ; 
and the more we read that Word our- 
selves, we shall be able to say with 
greater confidence, " It is my Bible." 
— William Wright. 

2 ^3 1 N Job and the Psalms we shall find 
■ more sublime ideas, more elevated 
language, than in any of the heathen 
versifiers of Greece or Rome. 
1 674-1 748. Isaac Watts. 



264r"OMPARE the Book of Psalms 
^ with the Odes of Horace or An- 
acreon, with the Hymns of Callim- 
achus, the Golden Verses of Pythag- 
oras, the Choruses of the Greek 
tragedians, and you will quickly see 
how greatly it surpasses them all in 



Ct <£lou& of XDitncsses. 127 



piety of sentiment, in sublimity of ex- 
pression, in purity of morality, and 
in rational theology. 

1737-1816. — Richard Watson, 

Bishop of Llandaff. 
"An Apology for the Bible. Reply to 
Paine's 'Age of Reason.' " 

265 ^F HIS, for my part, I do believe, that 

■ the Scripture is clear and full of 
light, as to all matters of conscience, 
as to all rules of light, as to all nec- 
essary matters of faith, so that any 
well-minded man that takes up the 
Bible and reads, may come to under- 
standing and satisfaction. And to 
this purpose then is the Divine Spirit 
to wait upon this instrument of God. 
— Benjamin Whichcote. 
1610-1683. 

266 C TAR of eternity ! The only star 
^ By which the bark of man could 

navigate 
The sea of life, and gain the coast of 

bliss 
Securely ; only star which rose on 

Time, 



128 (X (£louo of IDttnesses. 

And, on its dark and troubled billows, 

still, 
As generation, difting swifly by, 
Succeeded generation, threw a ray 
Of Heaven's own light, and to the 

hills of God, 
The eternal hills, pointed the sinner's 

eye. — Alexander Wallace. 

267 ^IFFUSE the knowledge of the Bi- 
" ble, and the hungry will be fed 
and the naked clothed. Diffuse the 
knowledge of the Bible and the 
stranger will be sheltered, the pris- 
oner visited, and the sick ministered 
unto. Diffuse the knowledge of the 
Bible and temperance will rest upon 
a surer basis than any mere private 
pledge or public statute. 

1809 — — Robert C. Winthrop. 



268 T'HERE are in Shakespeare's 
* works more than five hundred 
and fifty Biblical quotations, allusions, 
references, and sentiments. ' ' Hamlet ' ' 
alone contains about eighty, " Rich- 
ard the Third" nearly fifty, "Henry 



<X (Eloub of tDttnesses. 129 



the Fifth" and Richard the Second" 
about forty each. Shakespeare quotes 
from fifty-four of the Biblical books, 
and not one of his thirty-seven plays 
is without a Scriptural reference. 
Genesis furnishes the poet thirty-one 
quotations or allusions, the Psalms 
with fifty-nine, Proverbs with thirty- 
five, Isaiah with twenty-one, Matthew 
with sixty, Luke with thirty, and Ro- 
mans with twenty. 

1807 — Bishop Wordsworth, 

Shakespeare and the Bible. 



269 TURN from the oracles of man, 
■ still dim even in their clearest re- 
ponse, to the oracles of God, which 
are never dark. Bury all your books 
when you feel the night of skepticism 
gathering around you ; bury them all, 
powerful though you may have 
deemed their spells to illuminate the 
unfathomable ; open your Bible, and 
all the spiritual world will be bright 
as day. 

— John Wilson (Christopher North). 
1785-1854. 



130 CI Cloub of IDttnesses. 

■♦■ 

270 |f i s m y earnest wish, gentlemen, 
■ that the words you have just heard 
from the pulpit may find place and 
realization in the hearts and thoughts 
of all. ... If there is anything 
that, amidst the drifting stress of the 
world's life, can give us a holdfast, it 
is the one, the solitary, foundation 
which is laid in Jesus Christ. Do not 
allow yourselves to be bewildered 
into missing this, gentlemen, by the 
flux of change which, especially at 
the present period, traverses the 
world. Do not join the multitude of 
those who either ignore the Bible al- 
together as the one foundation of truth, 
or at least give it a spurious inter- 
pretation of their own devising. You 
all know that I am a member, on full 
and free conviction, of the " Positive 
Union " established by my late dear 
father. The basis and rock on which 
I, and we all, are bound to fix our 
foothold, is the unadulterated faith as 
taught us by the Bible. There are, to 
be sure, many who do not all take 
exactly the same line of interpreta- 
tion; each uses his knowledge and 



CC Cloub of HHtrtesses. 131 



conscience as well as he can, and 
thereby regulates his acts and pur- 
poses. . . . May all the Alumni 
of this institution find this day so 
blest to them that the knowledge of 
God and his only-begotten Son Jesus 
Christ, as the alone source of true 
salvation, may advance in them ! 
Each indeed is free to deal with this 
according to the voice of his con- 
science ; but all must build on the 
foundation of the Bible and the Gos- 
pel. Let but this be secured, and 
all will be enabled to develop a Di- 
vinely-blest ministerial work, each 
according to his special gift. 

J 859 — — The Emperor William, 
In an Adress at the Jubilee of the Ca- 
thedral College for Candidates for 
Orders. 



271 flETlRE and read th y Bible, to be 
■* gay ; 
There truths abound of sovereign aid 

to peace; 
Ah! do not prize them less, because 

inspired, 



132 CI (Eloub of IDttnesses. 

■♦ ■ 

As thou and thine are apt and proud 

to do. 
If not inspired, that fragrant page 

had stood, 
Time's treasure, and the wonder of 
the wise ! 
1681-1765. — Edward Young. 



TRIBUTES. 
Part 1 1 . 



*M K HE Bible is like nature, omnivor- 
ous, yet healthful. It has a Di- 
vine vitality, which enables it to absorb 
and assimilate elements most diverse 
and contradictory . Nature is ever 
clean, healthful, and serene. Though 
teeming cities may shed their filth upon 
her bosom, though the malaria may 
reek, and the earthquake throb here 
and there, yet she has an exhaustless 
recuperative, and assimilative energy , 
which distills perfume from carrion, 
sweetness from rottenness. So the 
Bible, with all its contradictory moods, 
a?id conflicting statements, is ever in- 
finitely calm and healthful, because in- 
finitely vital. Nature, man, and Scrip- 
ture, when read with an open eye, prove 
themselves to be successive volumes on 
the same theme, and from the same Haiid. 
—FALES H. NEWHALL, D. D. 
134 



faxt II. 

2 72 |T may be that this last battle of the 
■ world is to prove the most terrible 
of all. Satan is evidently bringing 
up his reserves, and arming his hosts 
for the heaviest onset the Church has 
yet seen. Ancient paganism fell be- 
fore the Gospel; mediseval supersti- 
tion gave way before it. But will not 
these new organizations of evil in 
which the human heart is displaying 
its deadliest antipathies to God, prove 
too strong for it? Will it not have to 
retire discomfited before those armies 
of the aliens? No; if this be the last 
battle, there must out of it come a 
last victory for the Book of God. 
Whether that victory may result in 
a wide acceptance of the Truth over 
Europe is a question I do not under- 
take to answer; but that there will 
be a victory of some kind for the 
Bible, I believe — victory which will 
show that there is no amount of an- 
tagonism to God which it can not 

i35 



136 d Cloub of tDttnesses. 



face, and no strength of human evil 
with which it can not cope success- 
fully as the power of God unto sal- 
vation. 

1 808-1 890. — H. Bonar, 

"White Fields of France," p. 324, 

273 THERE are philosophers of the 

■ world — your cosmogonists, or 
whatever you please to term them — 
that are boring down to the deepest 
stratum to frame their hypotheses, 
their ideas. God forbid that I should 
hold for a moment true science to be 
in quarrel with revelation. That can 
never be. No, sir; the God who made 
nature wrote the Bible ; and I am not 
prepared to be an infidel as regards 
the one principle any more than an 
infidel as regards the other. 

— George W. Bethune. 

274 T^HE inspired poetry of David or of 

* Job, the simple narrative of the 
evangelists, the fiery eloquence of 
Peter and Paul, are unequaled by any 
poets or prose-writers of any age or 
country. And why should they not, 



(X Cloub of IDttnesses. 137 
♦• 

then, educate their students as well as 
Homer or Virgil? 

— Maud B. Booth, 
"Beneath Two Flags," p. 249. 



275 T^HAT the Bible is not less condu- 
" cive to the well-being of man in 
this life, than it is essential to his 
hopes in that which is to come, as a 
theoretical truth might in advance be 
deduced from the character of the 
Sacred Volume, the nature of its con- 
tents and their adaptation to the char- 
acter and condition of man, both as 
an isolated individual and as a mem- 
ber of organized society. As a prac- 
tical truth it is established by our 
experience of the past, and is there- 
fore an historical fact; indeed, the 
course of the sun in the progress of 
the seasons is not more distinctly 
marked by its impress on vegetable 
life than has been the dissemination 
of the Bible in its influence upon the 
individual character and the social 
condition of man. Wherever the 
Bible has been circulated it has re- 



138 CI <£loub of tDttnesses. 



claimed the individual from supersti- 
tion; has enlightened, purified, and 
given true direction to that religious 
principle which seems to be a constit- 
uent element in his nature. . . . 
Still more extensive has been the in- 
fluence of the Bible upon man's social 
condition. . . . Wherever it has 
gone it has carried with it juster no- 
tions of individual rights and sounder 
views of the true end and object of 
government. It has exerted a great 
and benign influence upon the enact- 
ment of laws and their execution. 
It has given its solemn sanction to 
the establishment of right, and has 
tempered with mercy the administra- 
tion of justice. And while it has 
meliorated the punishment of of- 
fenses by the introduction and im- 
provement of penitentiary and cor- 
rectional systems, it has greatly 
strengthened those of preventive po- 
lice by imposing its binding restraints 
upon the indulgence of the passions 
and the commission of crimes. 
Equally great and salutary has been 
the influence of the Bible upon 



CI Clouo of HHtnesses. 139 



the mental labors and the intellectual 
condition of man in all ages and in 
all countries. It has chastened his 
imagination and invigorated his judg- 
ment. It has purified literature, ele- 
vated philosophy, directed science to 
its true ends and aims, and thus effect- 
ually contributed to the advancement 
of civilization and the melioration of 
the world. 

— Hon. Luther Bradish, 
Address before the American Bible So- 
ciety. 
1783-1863. 



276 M OT only does the Bible inculcate 
* ■ with sanctions of highest import 
a system of the purest morality; but 
in the person and character of our 
blessed Savior it exhibits a tangible 
illustration of that system. In him 
we have set before us — what, till the 
publication of the Gospel, the world 
had never seen — a model of feeling 
and action, adapted to all times, 
places, and circumstances; and com- 
bining so much of wisdom, benev- 



140 G <£loub of IDttnesses. 

■♦■ 

olence, and holiness, that none can 
fathom its sublimity ; and yet pre- 
sented in a form so simple that even 
a child may be made to understand 
and taught to love it. 

— Benjamin F. Butler, 
In an Address at Alexandria, D C. 
1818-1876. 



2 77«"|*HIS Work in all ages of the 
■ world has ever met the wants of 
man, has ever answered the earnest 
questions of a struggling spirit as no 
human philosophy ever can. While 
it offers its truths to those men 
highly endowed by God, it is emphat- 
ically also the poor man's Book, 
though he may be ignorant of the 
various arguments to support it. 
The Scriptures come home to his na- 
ture and meet the various wants of 
his soul, and he finds a basis for be- 
lief that the hands of infidelity can 
never tear down. They bring him 
comfort in his hours of despondency. 
Were the Bible removed, the millions 
of earth would be like mariners upon 



d Cloub of XDttnesses. 141 
♦■ 

the stormy ocean without pole-star 
or compass. 

181 7 — — Joseph Cummings, 

President Wesleyan University. 

278 IT is a grand subject for meditation, 

to behold in our modern societies 
the love of the holy doctrines of the 
Gospel advancing with the progress 
of philosophy and of political insti- 
tutions, so that the nations which are 
most advanced in civilization and in 
liberty are also the most religious, 
the most truly Christian. 

— Baron Dk Staei, (Jils). 

279 WHENCE has sprung this redeem- 

w ing spirit that has already borne 
its blessings to every clime ; that floats 
the Bethel flag, penetrates the gloom 
of the prison; that soothes the or- 
phan's cry, and pleads the cause of 
the widow; that opens the stores of 
thought and memory to the long- 
bound intellects of the deaf and 
dumb ; that is now closing the door 
of the dram-shop — that broad and 



142 CI Cloub of IDitnesses. 



crowded gateway to despair — and 
is sounding the alarm and concen- 
trating the efforts of the wise and 
good in view of the Sabbath profa- 
nation? The Bible has done all, 
sir. Seal up this one volume, and in 
half a century all these hopes would 
wither and these prospects perish for- 
ever. Those sacred temples would 
crumble or become receptacles of pol- 
lution and crime. 

— Theodore Freeinghuysen. 
i 787-1 86 i. 

280 PAY present object is to hint at the 
■ ■ intimate connection between the 
Bible and our national prosperity. 
The destinies of our beloved country 
are peculiarly associated with the 
Bible. It was under the auspices of 
the Bible that our country was set- 
tled ; it was the Bible that conducted 
the Pilgrim to our eastern, and the 
Friend to our central wilderness. If 
the revolution which made us free dif- 
fered in mildness of character from all 
previous revolutions, it was because 
the Bible mitigated its severity. If 



Ct <£lou6 of IDttnesses. 143 
+ 

our emancipated country has risen 
from infancy to vigorous youth, if 
she is now hailed as the hope of the 
world, the tyrant's dread, and the 
patriot's boast, let her thank her 
statesmen much; let her thank her 
Bible more. A despotic government 
may subsist without the Bible ; a re- 
public can not. A republic can not, 
like a despotic government, be sus- 
tained by force. She can not, like a 
despot, tame her children into heart- 
less submission by the bayonets of a 
mercenary army; her bayonets are 
reserved for the invading foe. She 
must depend for domestic tranquillity, 
for preserving her mild institutions 
pure and unimpaired, on the wide 
diffusion of moral principle. Were 
men angels, they would need no gov- 
ernment but the precepts of their 
Creator, Were they devils, they must 
be bound in adamantine chains; and 
as they approximate the one state or 
the other, their government must be 
free or must be severe. The patriot 
then, as well as the Christian, must 
anxiously inquire, What are the best 



144 <3 Clouo of XDttnesses. 
•*• 

means of promoting, what the surest 
foundation of human virtue? . . . 
The Being who made man has also 
condescended to propose a plan for 
his moral improvement; a plan ex- 
ceeding in effect all human systems 
as far as the Legislator of the heavens 
surpasses in wisdom the statesmen of 
earth. The Bible is not a scheme of 
abstract faith and doctrine; its great 
object is to render man virtuous here, 
and thus prepare him for happiness 
hereafter. ... It pervades every 
department of society, and brings its 
variegated mass within the influence 
of that high moral principle which 
is the only substitute for despotic 
power. This controlling and sus- 
taining principle has no substantial 
basis but the Bible; its other founda- 
tions have ever proved to be sand. 
The Bible is found to be its only 
rock. ... A republic without the 
Bible will inevitably become the vic- 
tim of licentiousness; it contains 
within itself the turbulent and un- 
tamable elements of its own destruc- 
tion. There is no political Eden for 



<X (Eloub of XDttnesses. 145 



281 



fallen man save what the Bible pro- 
tects. — George Griffin, 

New York. Address before the Amer- 
ican Bible Society. 

IVESPOTISM may exist independ- 
U ent of morality; but republics 
soon perish when the people becomes 
corrupt. The efforts of Christian 
patriots, therefore, must be directed 
to elevate and sustain the moral 
character of our citizens; and no 
method is so efficient to this end as to 
imbue them with the knowledge and 
wisdom of the Bible. It opens to our 
view the only true source of moral 
obligation or of public and private 
duty, and enforces these with the 
only sanctions that can affect the 
mind and reach the conscience of man; 
namely , the omniscience and goodness 
and mercy of God and the certain ret- 
ributions of the life to come. With- 
out these sanctions, the laws are no 
longer observed; oaths lose their 
hold on the conscience; promises are 
violated; frauds are multiplied, and 
moral obligation is dissolved. And 
10 



146 CI <£loub of IDitnesses. 



these securities natural religion does 
not furnish; they are found in the 
Bible alone. In sublimity of thought, 
in grandeur of conception, in purity 
and elevation of moral principle, in 
the practical wisdom of its teachings, 
and, above all, in the high and im- 
portant character of its themes, the 
Holy Bible is not even approached 
by any human composition. 

— Simon Greenleaf, 
Harvard University School of Law. 
1781-1853. 



282 1Y/E say, then, that the writings 
** about which there is no dispute 
amongst Christians, and which have 
any particular person's name affixed 
to them are that author's whose title 
they are marked with, because the 
first writers quote those books under 
those names. Neither did any hea- 
thens or Jews raise any controversy as 
if they were not the works of those 
whose they were said to be. . . . 
There is no reason for us Christians 
to doubt the credibility of these 



CI dloub of Witnesses. 147 
♦ 

books (of the Old Testament) because 
there are testimonies in our books 
(of the New Testament) out of al- 
most every one of them. Nor did 
Christ, when he reproved many things 
in the teachers of the Law, ever ac- 
cuse them of falsifying the books of 
Moses and the Prophets, or of using 
supposititious or altered books. And 
it can never be proved or made cred- 
itable that after Christ's time the 
Scripture should be corrupted in any- 
thing of moment, if we do but con- 
sider how far and wide the Jewish 
nation, who everywhere kept these 
books, was dispersed over the whole 
world. Hugo Grotius. 

1583-1645. 

283 I HT this precious Volume have its 
™ proper influence on the hearts of 
men, and our liberties are safe, our 
country blessed, and the world happy. 
There is not a tie that unites us to 
our families, not a virtue that endears 
us to our country, nor a hope that 
thrills your bosoms in the prospect of 
future happiness, that has not its 



148 CI £lou6 of Utttnesses. 



foundation in this Sacred Book. It 
is the charter of characters — the pal- 
ladium of liberty — the standard of 
righteousness. Its Divine influence 
can soften the heart of the tyrant, can 
break the rod of the oppressor, and 
exalt the humblest peasant to the 
dignified rank of an immortal being, 
an heir of eternal glory. 

— John C. Hornblower, 
Chief Justice of New Jersey. 

284 M O good for bad white man to tell 
' me the Bible is not true. It 
stopped my swearin' and stealin' and 
lyin', when I 'd done 'em all forty 
years steady. It 's a miracle that I 've 
stopped, but it would be a bigger one 
if a book that wa'n't true could 'a' 
made me." — Indian Convert. 

285 HUMAN laws labor under many 

other great imperfections. They 
extend to external actions only. They 
can not reach that catalogue of secret 
crimes which are committed without 
any witness save the all-seeing eye 
of that Being whose presence is 



& (£Iou6 of IDitnesses. 149 

everywhere, and whose laws reach 
the hidden recesses of vice, and carry 
their sanctions to the thoughts and 
intents of the heart. In this view 
the doctrines of the Bible supply all 
the deficiencies of human laws, and 
lend an essential aid to the adminis- 
tration of justice. — James Kent, 
1 763-1 847. Chancellor, New York. 

286 I^Y opinion of the Sacred Volume 



n 



keystone to the arch. No nation can 
long exist in peace that does not re- 
spect it. It carries peace and happi- 
ness into every society where its pre- 
cepts are loved and its commands 
obeyed. To the young, its value and 
importance are beyond compare. 
— Colonel Loomis, 
1852 — United States Army. 

287 J§ S the king among his subjects, as 
*■ the sun among the stars, so is the 
Bible compared with every other 
book. . . . It is to this blessed Vol- 
ume that we are indebted for the gen- 



150 (X Cloub of IDitnesses. 
4— 

eral temperance, industry, and content- 
ment of the teeming millions of this 
happy and highly-favored country. 
— Joseph Henry Lumpkin, 
1812-1860. Chief Justice, Georgia. 



288qpHE Book is not the truth ; it con- 
■ tains it. The types and words are 
not the truth or the Word of God ; 
they are but the outward expression 
and symbols of that Word. 

— Charles Pettit McIevaine, 
Bishop Protestant Episcopal Church. 
Address at 426. Anniversary American 
Bible Society. 
1799-1873. 

289 B UT herein to our Prophets far be- 
■^ neath 
As men divinely taught and better 

teaching 
The solid rules of civil government 
In their majestic, unaffected style, 
Than all the oratory of Greece and 

Rome. 
In them is plainest taught and easiest 

learnt 



CI <£loub of IDttnesses. 151 



What makes a nation happy, and 

keeps it so, 
What ruins kingdoms and lays cities 

flat. 
1608-1674. —John Milton. 



N 



salutary influences of the Bible. 
What would the world be without 
it? Compare the dark places of the 
earth where the light of the Gospel 
has not penetrated with those where 
it has been proclaimed and embraced 
in all its purity. . . . The Bible 
has shed a glorious light upon our 
world. . . The Bible has given us 
a sublime and pure morality, to which 
the world was a stranger. . . . 
No system out of the Bible recog- 
nizes an Omniscient Power which 
scrutinizes the actions of men, and, 
looking behind the act, takes notice 
of the motive. . . . The laws 



152 (X (Elouo of IDttnesses. 

■♦■ 

which belong to the social relation are 
found in the Bible. 

— John McLean, 
Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. 
1785-1861. 
On the Wholesome Influence of the 
Bible on our Social and Civil Life. 



291 ^S bread accompanies all our meals 
" all through our lives, so ought 
the reading of the Word of God to 
accompany all our studies. 

— Jean Frederick Oberlin. 
1 735- 1 806. 



292 ■ DO declare to the whole world that 
■ we believe the Scriptures to con- 
tain a declaration of the mind and 
will of God in and to those ages in 
which they were written ; being given 
forth by the Holy Ghost, moving in 
the hearts of holy men of God; that 
they ought also to be read, believed, 
and fulfilled in our day ; being use- 
ful for reproof and inspiration, that 



Q Cloub of IDitnesses- 153 



the man of God may be perfect. 
They are a declaration and testimony 
of heavenly things, but not the heav- 
enly things themselves, and, as such, 
we carry a high respect for them. 
We accept them as the words of God 
himself; and, by the assistance of his 
Spirit, they are read with great in- 
struction and comfort. 
1644-17 18. — William Penn. 



2 93 m jT HERE is a saying, as true as it is 
■ trite, that we seldom estimate 
blessings properly until we have lost 
them ; and perhaps, therefore, the vast 
importance of the Bible, not only to 
ourselves, but to those unhappy beings 
who have never known it, may be 
best imagined and most strongly im- 
pressed upon our minds by consider- 
ing, for a moment, what we our- 
selves would be without it. Sup- 
pose, then, that at this very mo- 
ment the Bible, with all the institu- 
tions connected with it, were blotted 
from existence, what would be the 
effect upon this happy and enlight- 



154 G Clouo of tDitnesses. 



ened land? Would it not become 
comparatively a scene of worse than 
Egyptian darkness and savage barbar- 
ism ? Would it not become, compared 
with what it now is, a melancholy 
scene of civil, political, and moral 
degradation ; and exhibit the same 
relation to its present palmy state 
that is now presented by the pagan 
and heathen natives of the world? 
Can there be a doubt of this? Is it 
not a fact that exactly in proportion as 
the principles of the Gospel prevail 
among a people, or they are ignorant 
of and unactuated by them, so they 
are either distinguished by all the 
qualities and endowments that ele- 
vate and purify and adorn our na- 
ture, or debased by the vices and 
abominations that degrade it? Is it 
not a fact that heathen nations gen- 
erally are the more ignorant and bar- 
barous on the earth; and that while 
all Christian nations are immeasurably 
elevated above the heathen in knowl- 
edge, virtue, and benevolence, so the 
relative rank and attainments of 
Christian uations themselves are gov- 



CI <£loub of tDttnesses. 155 

'♦■ 
erned by the extra degree in which 
they possess and practice the Gospel 
in its purity ? 

— H. L. Pinckney, M. C, 

From South Carolina. 
In Address at Bible Meeting, District 
of Columbia. 1834. 



2 94 1 n New Zealand, and in other parts 
■ of the world, we are "laying the foun- 
dation of new societies; and the future 
character and moral tendency of those 
societies which may spring up into 
great kingdoms may be, and no doubt 
will be, determined by the basis of 
moral and religious instruction upon 
which we now establish them. If at 
their first institution there be no pains 
taken to instill into their minds the 
principles of true religion, in place of 
becoming great and valuable king- 
doms, the inhabitants may become 
pests to all around them, corrupting 
all within their reach ; but if, in lay- 
ing the foundation of their future 
empire, we shall sow the truth of 
real religion, hereafter this land may 



156 (X Cloub of tDttnesses. 
■♦■ 

claim for itself the proud and high 
distinction of having propagated the 
knowledge and Word of God, and of 
having laid the foundation, not only 
of great, but moral kingdoms. 
1788-1850. — Robert Peel, 

From Address, Tarn worth. 1827. 

295 P*| ANY and ingenious speculations 
■ ■ have been given to the world to 
account for the repeated and disas- 
trous failure of the successive attempts 
which have been made, during the 
last seventy years, to establish and 
sustain a system of free government 
in this country. However nu- 
merous and various the secondary 
causes to which the melancholy and 
remarkable fact may be ascribed, the 
one efficient and primary cause, I am 
convinced, is to be found in the gen- 
eral eradication from the national 
mind of Divine truth and Divine au- 
thority by the philosophy, falsely so- 
called, of the last century, which had 
its origin and has continued to main- 
tain its fatal influence here. The 
French nation has not been wanting 



CI Clouo of JDitnesses. 157 



in many of the circumstances ordina- 
rily deemed the most essential to the 
practice and support of free govern- 
ment. They have undoubtedly had, 
in their successive essays at constitu- 
tional liberty, the aid and direction of 
many men of great and distinguished 
talents, in a worldly sense, both in 
the cabinet and the senate. Nor are 
the mass of the people so ignorant 
and uninformed on general topics as 
is by some imagined. With the ex- 
ception of the mere rural laborers, it 
would be hard to find any country 
in which the population engaged in 
the ordinary industrious callings of life 
are more intelligent, nimble-witted, 
and even exercised in reading of cer- 
tain kinds. There is one Book, how- 
ever, which remains sealed, for the 
the most part, to all classes of so- 
ciety, and that is the Book of Eter- 
nal Wisdom, with all its precious 
lessons of duty to God and man, of 
temperance, of moderation, of self- 
control, of conscientious obedience to 
the still small voice within. Hence it 
is that in the agitations and struggles 



158 Ct (Eloub of IDttnesses. 



inseparable from the existence of civil 
and political freedom, abandoned to 
the infirmities of our common nature, 
without the chastening discipline of 
the Gospel, they have had no internal 
strength to fortify and keep them 
erect against the disturbing influ- 
ences from without, and to restrain 
the violence and fury of the passions ; 
no monitor to recall them, from time 
to time, from the eagerness of their 
worldly contentions and pursuits to 
the recollection of their immortal 
destinies and responsibilities; no 
standard of infallible truth by which 
to try the inventions of mere human 
reason. And thus have we seen in so 
many instances, in this country, a fit- 
ful and spurious liberty degenerating 
into license and crime, or torn and 
distracted by factions, or frightening 
mankind by the proclamation of new 
and disorganizing theories, to be swal- 
lowed up at last in a degrading and 
relentless despotism. The lesson 
which the melancholy experience of 
France teaches on this subject is 
one of universal application. The 



CI Cloub of XXHtnesses- 159 



blessings of a free popular govern- 
ment can not, I am convinced, be long 
preserved anywhere but by the influ- 
ence and discipline of the Christian 
religion deeply implanted in the 
hearts and lives of all classes of so- 
ciety. 

— William Cabell Rives, 
1 793-1 868. United States Minister to 
France. 1852. 
On the Connection Between Civil and 
Political Liberty and the Study and 
Reverence of the Holy Scriptures. 

2 96 I HAVE had this Bible as my com- 
panion for fifty-three years. Forty- 
one years of that time I have spent at 
sea; I have been in forty-five engage- 
ments; have been fifteen times 
wounded, and three times ship- 
wrecked; I have had fevers, of dif- 
ferent kinds, fifteen times. But my 
consolation has always been in this 
little Companion of mine. 

— An English Seaman, 
On showing a well-worn Bible at the 
depository of the London Bible So- 
ciety. 



160 G, (Lloub of IDttnesses. 



297 IYI OUI^D that a history of the 
" American Revolution could 
have been written by one who, 
like Xenophon, was a distinguished 
actor in the scenes described, and 
who, imbued with the right spirit, 
could illustrate by appropriate facts 
the influence which animated and 
upheld the agents in that mighty 
struggle! In such a work, if I mis- 
take not, the present and future gen- 
erations would perceive the fruits of 
early Biblical instruction, and learn 
the value of the Bible in the day of 
adversity. They would see the effect 
of a mother's early faithfulness to 
the immortal Washington, who suf- 
fered not a day to pass over him 
without consulting his Bible. They 
would behold in an American Con- 
gress, fully exemplified, the union of 
humble piety with exalted patriot- 
ism ; a body on whom the whole con- 
duct of the war was developed, but 
who, nevertheless, could anxiously 
deliberate on the means of obtaining 
from abroad (such was their estimate 
of its worth) copies of the Sacred 



d Cloub of IDiinesses. 161 



Volume for their destitute and implor- 
ing fellow-citizens; in short, they 
would perceive, not only the gallant 
bearing of a patriot army, but their 
patient endurance under unparalleled 
privations, and the invincible spirit 
displayed by all classes of a suffering 
people plainly ascribable, in no mod- 
erate degree, to an early and deeply- 
impressed acquaintance with the Bi- 
ble through the medium of maternal 
faithfulness and the common school. 
— John Cotton Smith. 
1765-1845. 

2 98 M ERE, then, the body of educated 
■ ■ men must take their stand. By 
all the means in their power they 
must endeavor to avert the pestilent 
mischief of desecrating the places of 
instruction, of separating the cul- 
ture of the heart from that of the 
mind, and under the pretense of a lib- 
eral morality that is clear in its source, 
pure in its precepts, and efficacious 
in its influence — the morality of the 
Gospel. — John Sargent, 

Address Nassau Hall. 



162 Ct Clouo of IDttnesses. 



299 ^THE antiquary will return, with no 

I ordinary curiosity, to the earliest 
complete volume that remains to us 
of ancient manuscript, and the first 
that issued from the press after the 
invention of printing. The historian, 
if he regards it of no higher author- 
ity than Herodotus, will prize it as 
the precursor of that author and the 
foundation of his department. The 
statesman will face the outlines of the 
earliest legislation and jurisprudence 
known to history, and the most per- 
fect moral code of any age or country. 
The lawyer, in the details of the pro- 
fessional pursuits which engage his 
attention through life, will meet with 
many pertinent examples and instruc- 
tions. — David Swain, 
1801-1868. Governor North Carolina. 

300 »|»HE Scriptures also teach that to 

■ derive all the benefit which God 
designed to bestow in revealing him- 
self to his fallen creatures, man, on 
his part, must strive to do God's will. 
Let man do this, and he will know 
whether the Bible is the Word of God 



CI Cloub of tDttnesses. 163 

or a cunningly devised fable. Men of 
any experience and observation must 
have seen those who have been re- 
claimed from a profane and immoral 
course of conduct to sobriety, truth, 
piety, and happiness, by studying and 
obeying the Sacred Oracles of eternal 
truth. — Commodore Skinner, 

United States Navy. 1852. 

301 ^HE Bible is the grand charter of 

man's political and civil equality, 
liberty, and order. It is the guardian 
and the only adequate protector of 
his social happiness. Should the hu- 
man race ever come fully under its 
influence, both national wars and per- 
sonal dissensions would cease, and this 
world would become a terrestrial par- 
adise. 

— Benjamin Sieeiman, Sr., 
1 779-1 864. Yale College. 

3 02 ^^F all men, American scholars 
^^ ought not to be ignorant of any- 
thing which the Bible contains. If 
Cicero could declare that the laws of 
the twelve tables were worth all the 



164 <X <Lloub of tDitnesses. 



libraries of the philosophers ; if they 
were the carmen necessarium of the 
Roman youth, — how laboriously 
ought you to investigate its contents, 
and inscribe them upon your hearts ! 
— Samuel Lewis Southard, 
17S7-1842. Governor of New Jersey. 

3°3 I F there be any one subject that at 
■ this day commands general atten- 
tion, it is that of national and social 
oppression. This is not confined to 
one country or one people, but it is 
so throughout all Christendom. Hu- 
manity everywhere rises up and de- 
nies the law of its bondage. . . . 
How were the American people elec- 
trified by the masses of Europe link- 
ing together in one brotherhood, the 
high and the low, under impulses 
common to our nature ! All this we 
saw with amazement and delight, and 
then we beheld the ground, so nobly 
won, all lost. Despotism and treach- 
ery decimated and crushed the forces 
of the free. Why was this? We 
changed our form of government, and 
peace and quiet followed. They made 



Ct Clou6 of XDitnesses. 165 
■♦■ 

the same attempt, and failed. The 
cause did not exist in mere outward 
circumstances, but in the want of 
those early associations derived from 
the Word of God. A free Bible 
makes free men the world over. With- 
out Bible views of liberty and equal- 
ity, the American Revolution would 
have been smothered in its own 
blood. . . . We hear much of 
the mission of the American people. 
One mission, at least, we have; but it 
should be understood that our suc- 
cess lies, not in outward constitutions, 
but in those inner principles that are 
the seeds of a Christian democracy. 
Constitutions and charters are all well, 
but they must have their basis in that 
great charter given by the King Eter- 
nal, immortal, and invisible, as a foun- 
dation on which to erect the super- 
structure of human rights. The late- 
lamented L,egare said that every man 
who stepped from the Mayflower was 
himself a living constitution ; and un- 
til Europe posseses such men she will 
pant for liberty in vain. We can be 
liberty-propagandists only by becom- 



166 (X Cloub of IDttnesses. 



ing Bible-propagandists. Carlyle may 
write his latter-day pamphlets to try 
to stay the progress of democracy, but 
here, in the Bible, is the great latter- 
day pamphlet which will survive that 
great day for which all other days 
were made. It needs no eulogy. 
Christianity has written it on the 
whole course of her history. 
♦ — John Thompson, 

In an Address to the theme : The Bible, 
in its letter and spirit, furnishes 
the best of all standards by which 
to test the numerous theories of the 
day for improving the condition and 
prospects of the race. 

304 I ACCEPT, with gratitude and pleas- 
ure, your gift of this inestimable 
Volume. It was for the love of the 
truths of this great and good Book 
that our fathers abandoned their na- 
tive shores for the wilderness. Ani- 
mated by its lofty principles, they 
toiled and suffered till the desert 
blossomed as the rose. These same 
truths sustained them in their resolu- 
tion to become a free nation; and, 



305 



CI <£lou5 of XDttnesses. 167 
'♦■ 
guided by the wisdom of this Book, 
they founded a government under 
which we have grown from three mill- 
ions to more than twenty millions of 
people, and from being but a stock 
on the borders of this continent, we 
have spread from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. — Zachary Taylor, 

1 784-1 850. 1 2th President of the U. S. 

To the ladies of Frankfort, on receiving 

a copy of the Bible bound with that of 

the Constitution of the United States. 

RY government, we are to under- 
■^ stand the power that makes and 
administers law. Every government 
has certain duties to discharge; fore- 
most among which is the restraint of 
the passions of man, the repression of 
turbulence and disorder, and this is 
the direct object of a police. The ne- 
cessity for such action grows out of 
the universal prevalence of passions 
that need to be repressed. The form 
of this police depends upon the genius 
of the people who are governed. In 
a despotic nation it is very simple, 
consisting merely in the exercise of 



168 CI £lou6 of IDitnesses. 

terror and of force. So in decayed 
and false republics, like that of Ven- 
ice, the police has a secret and un- 
bounded power. But in such a coun- 
try as ours the problem is one not so 
easily solved. Yet here, it must be 
manifest that a vigilant and effective 
police is absolutely necessary to the 
prevalence of order and of quiet. The 
liberty of speech and opinion which 
prevails renders this essential, and to 
accomplish this object we must look 
to something more than the array of 
civil officers. There is little in our 
form of government to inspire awe or 
fear; it operates silently and almost 
unnoticed. We must have other and 
stronger support than the array of 
authority finds. And although the 
intelligence of the people is one great 
element of this reliance, still to the 
Bible, and to the power of the truths 
.which it contains, are we far more in- 
debted than to any other cause for 
the preservation of order and of peace 
throughout the land. Even this city, 
with a vastly increased police, with- 
out the Bible, without the pulpit, 



(X <£Iou5 of tDttnesses. 169 



without any of the influences that 
flow from the power of religious truth, 
could not preserve peace and order 
and security of person and property, 
for a single year. The Bible makes 
a man afraid to do wrong, because it 
teaches him that he thereby violates 
the laws of his conscience and his God. 
And by this influence alone it con- 
tributes immensefy to the peace and 
good order of the community. The 
Bible, moreover, infuses into the bosom 
of every man a feeling of self-control, 
and in so doing it la3^s the foundation 
for a simple, thorough, and effective 
government of the country. The 
cheapness of this method of police, 
moreover, should commend it to the fa- 
vor of this money-loving age. In all 
respects it is infinitely superior to 
every measure of secret espionage to 
which a Napoleon or a Nicholas may 
resort. The elements of such a moral 
police, it is evident, must be everywhere 
diffused; must pervade all classes, 
purify all motives, and inspire every- 
where a regard for justice and for the 
high and holy truths of the Word of 



170 CI Cloub of tPttnesses. 

■♦■ 
God. To accomplish this, the Bible 
must find its way into every family 
and every school-house in the coun- 
try. Nothing short of this will insure 
success. Men must be fed, and fed 
abundantly, with the Bread of Life. 
1 800-1 877. — Emory Washburn, 

Governor of Massachusetts. 
Speaking to the theme : The general 
diffusion of the Holy Scriptures, as an 
efficient measure of domestic police in 
a republic, deserves the countenance 
and support of every friend of our free 
institutions. 



306 I REGRET that my time is not 
■ more at my command, that I might 
evince the interest I feel in the Bi- 
ble-cause by something of more ac- 
count than mere profession. It is de- 
lightful to witness the exertions that 
are now making by the Christian world 
to dispel the night of ignorance that 
yet obscures so large a portion of this 



CL (Lloub of XDttnesses. 171 
+. 

planet, and to supply its place by the 
light of the cross. The manifesta- 
tions of Divine support are well- 
fitted to awaken all our energies and 
excite us to higher efforts than have 
ever yet been made. Even if we 
should not succeed to the full extent 
of our hopes and wishes, we shall 
make such an impression as shall 
shake the heathen world and prepare 
the way for a complete victory by 
those who are to follow us. Nay, 
even if we fail in a great attempt, and 
the grandeur and philanthropy of the 
enterprise must be reward enough 
for all our exertions. But we shall 
not fail. There is a God who looks 
down upon us and witnesses our ef- 
forts, and a Savior who approves and 
will sustain us by his intercession. 
The cause is good, the hearts that 
support it are true and good, and the 
God who upholds it is almighty. Let 
us go on, then, with courage and con- 
stancy, nothing doubting, and the 
Red Sea will open before us, the 
Rock in the desert will pour forth its 
stream, and the Eastern wilderness 



172 (X Cloub of IDttnesses. 

■♦■ 

will once more bud and blossom like 
the rose. — William Wirt, 

1772-1834. 

Attorney-General, United States. 

From a letter addressed, in 1838, to a 

meeting in New York, the design of 

which was to increase the circulation 

of the Scriptures throughout the world. 



307 BTEAD the Bible! Read the Bible ! 
■^ Let no religious book take its 
place. Through all my perplexities 
and distresses I never read any other 
book, and I never felt the want of any 
other. It has been my hourly study ; 
and all my knowledge of the doctrines, 
and all my acquaintance with the ex- 
perience and realities of religion, 
have been derived from the Bible 
only. I think religious people do not 
read the Bible enough. Books about 
religion may be useful enough, but 
they will not do instead of the simple 
truth of the Bible. 

— William Wilberforce. 
1 789-1 833. His dying words. 



d <£loub of XDttnesses. 173 



308 ^*0 those who have carefully ob- 
■ served or considered the progress 
of civil and religious freedom at dif- 
ferent times and in various countries, 
it can be hardly necessary to say, it 
has always been the most rapid as 
well as the most healthy where the 
Bible was most widely disseminated, 
and where the sacred truths contained 
therein were brought home to the 
greatest number of the people. In- 
deed, there is no nation, although 
nominally civilized and Christianized, 
which has made any very great ad- 
vancement in the amelioration and 
improvement of the social condition 
of the masses except those nations 
where the Sacred Scriptures were in 
the hands of and studied by the peo- 
ple generally. 

— Reuben Henry Waeworth, 
1 789-1 867. Chancellor, New York. 

3°9 I SHAI^L, however, as being in duty 
■ bound to follow the truth so far as 
I can discern it, have to make many 
confessions to the prejudice, not, as I 
trust, of Christian belief or of the 



174 & Cloub of tDttnesses. 



Sacred Volume, but only of us who, 
as its students, have failed gravely 
and at many points in the duty of a 
temperate and cautious treatment of 
it, as unhappily we have also failed in 
every other duty. But as the lines 
and laws of duty at large remain un- 
obscured, notwithstanding the imper- 
fections everywhere diffused, so we 
may trust that sufficient light }^et re- 
mains for us, if duly followed, whereby 
to establish the authority and suffi- 
ciency of Holy Scripture for its high 
moral and spiritual purposes. For 
the present I have endeavored to 
point out that the operations of crit- 
icism, properly so-called, affecting as 
they do the library form of the books, 
leave the questions of history, mir- 
acle, revelation, substantially where 
they found them. I shall in several 
succeeding papers strive to show, at 
least by specimens, that science and 
research have done much to sustain 
the historical credit of the Old Testa- 
ment ; that in doing this they have 
added strength to the argument which 
contends that in them we find a Di- 



d Cloub of XPttnesses. 175 



vine revelation ; and that the evi- 
dence, rationally viewed, both of con- 
tents and of results, binds us to stand 
where our forefathers have stood, 
upon the Impregnable Rock of 
Holy Scripture. 

— William Ewart Gladstone, 
" The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scrip- 
ture." 
1809 — 



INDEXES. 



177 



fZOOD and holy men and the best 
and wisest of mankind, the ki?igly 
spirits of history, have borne witness to 
its {the Bible's) influences, and have 
declared it to be beyond compare the 
most perfect instrument, the only ade- 
quate organ of humanity. 

—SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
Conjessions of an Inquiring Spirit, p. 7/. 
London, 1840. 
178 



GENERAL INDEX. 

Arnold, Matthew i, 2, 3 

Addison, Joseph 4 

Augustine, St 5 

Adams, John 6 

Adams, John Ouincy 7, 8, 9 

Alexander, I, Czar 10 

Ames, Fisher 11 

Arbuthnot, Alexander 12 

Anonymous 13, 17, 20 

Abbott, Lyman 14 

Ad Fidem (F. E. Burr) 15 

Atterbury, Francis 16 

Arrowsmith, John 18 

Alexander, Archibald, 19 

Bunsen, Chevalier 21 

Beattie, James 22 

Bengal, J. A 23 

Bartol, C. A 24 

Bruce, Michael 25 

Brown, J 26 

Berridge 27 

Bushe, Chief Justice 28 

Bellows, Henry W 29 

Briggs, Charles A 30 

Beard, Dr 31, 32 

Beecher, Henry Ward 33, 34 

Bishop Boone's Assistant 35 

Billings, Josh, 36 

Bacon, Lord 37 

Boyle, Robert. . , 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 

Bonar, H. 272 

Bethune, George W 273 

Booth, Maud B : 274 

179 



180 (general 3 n & e J* 
•♦ 

Bradish, Luther 275 

Butler, Benjamin F 276 

Cowper, William 43, 44, 45 

Clarke, James Freeman 46 

Clianning, William Ellery 47, 48 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 49, 50, 51, 52 

Clinton, De Witt 53 

Clark, Samuel 54 

Cheever, George B 55 

Cecil, Richard 56, 57 

Cass, Lewis 58 

Collins, William 59 

Carlyle, Thomas 60, 61, 62, 63 

Caine, Hall 64 

Clulow, W. B 65 

Conway, M. D 66 

Cummings, Joseph 277 

Dryden, John 67, 68 

De Tocqueville, Charles Henry 69 

Dwight, Timothy 70 

Dana, James Dwight 71, 72 

Dawson, Chancellor 73 

Diderot, Denis 74 

D'Aubigne, Merle 75 

Depew, Chauncy M 76 

Dana, Charles A 77 

De Stael. Baron, fils 278 

Ewald, G. H. A 78 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo 79 

Edward VI 80 

Everett, Edward 81 

Ebers, Georg 82 

Evans, Professor L. J 83, 84, 85 

Ecce Deus (Joseph Parker) 86 



(general 3 n & e ?- 181 
«► 

Franklin, Benjamin 87, 88 

Flavel, J 89 

Fawcett, John 90 

Field, Eugene 91 

Faber, F. W 92 

Froude, James Anthoii}- 93 

Frelinghuysen, Theodore 279 

Gregory I, The Great 94 

Gilfillan, George 95, 96 

Guizot, F. P. G 97 

Grant, U. S 98 

Garibaldi 99 

Gladstone, W. F 100, 101, 309 

Greeley, Horace 102 

Goethe, J. W. von 103, 104, 105, 106 

Gibbons, Cardinal 107 

Guyot, A. H 108 

Gladden, Washington 109 

Griffin, George 280 

Greenleaf, Simon 281 

Grotius, Hugo 282 

Herbert, George no, in 

Howells, R 112 

Hopkins, Mark 113 

Hervey , James 114 

Hall, John 115 

Hamilton, James 116, 117 

Horsley, Samuel 118 

Huxley, Professor 119, 120, 121 

Hoare, Canon 122 

Humboldt, Baron 123 

Holland, J. G 124 

Hornblower, John C 283 

Harris, John 125 

Hallam, Henry 126 



182 (general 3n5ey. 
+. 

Hooker, Richard T27 

Heine, Heinrich 128, 129 

Hervey, Lord Arthur 130 

Hall, Robert 131 

Herschel, Sir John 132 

Hale, Edward Everett 133 

Hugo, Victor 134 

Indian Convert 284 

Jay, John, Chief Justice 135 

Jackson, Andrew 136 

Jefferson, Thomas 137 

Jones, Sir William 138 

Joubert, F 139 

Johnson, Samuel 140 

Jewell, John 141 

Kempis, Thomas a 142 

Kent, Chancellor James 143, 285 

Kitto, John 144 

Lincoln, A 145 

Lee, Robert E 146 

Liddon, Canon 147 

Levy, Rabbi J. Leonard 148 

Landor, Walter Savage 149 

Lange, J. P 150 

Locke, John 151, 152 

Lightfoot, J. B 153 

Loomis, Colonel 286 

Lumpkin, Joseph Henry 287 

Leask, William 154, 155, 156 

Milton, John 157, 158, 289 

Macaulay, Lord 159, 160 

Melville, Henry 161, 162 

Mitchell, O. M 163 



general 3 n ^ e y- l8 3 
,+. 

Morris, H. W 164 

McCheyne, Robert M 165 

Maury, Lieutenant 166 

Murphy, Professor 167 

Muller, George 168 

Miller, Hugh 169 

Munger, Theodore T 170 

Mitchell, Donald G 171 

Mcllvaine, Charles P 288 

McLain, John 290 

Newton, Sir Isaac 172, 173 

Novalis (von Hardenberg) 174 

Nichol, R. B 175 

Nott, Kliphalet 176 

Napoleon 1 177, 178, 179, 180 

Oliphant, Mrs 181 

Oberlin, Jean Frederick 291 

Pope, Alexander 182 

Payson, Edward 183, 184 

Phillips, Wendell 185 

Pollok, Robert 186, 187, 188 

Parker, Theodore 189, 190, 191 

Pellico, Silvio 192 

Pedro, Emperor Dom 193 

Porteus, Bishop 194 

Penn, William 292 

Pinckney, H. L 293 

Porter, Noah 195 

Parker, Joseph 196 

Peel, Robert 294 

Peabody, A. P 197 

Plenary Council 198 

Quarles, Francis 199 



184 (Seneral 3 n ^ e ?« 
.+. 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques 200, 201 

Rochester, Earl of 202 

Rush, Benjamin 203 

Romaine, William 204 

Robertson, Frederick W 205 

Rodgers, Henry 206, 207, 208 

Ruskin, John 209, 210, 211, 212, 213 

Rives, William C 295 

Steele, Anne 214 

Stier, Rudolph 215 

Stanley, A. P 216 

Stalker, James 217 

Seward, William H 218 

Spurgeon, Charles H. . . 219 

Steele 220 

Sun, New York 221 

Simpson, Matthew 222 

Selden, John 223 

Schaff, Philip 224 

Swift, Dean 225' 

Story, Chief Justice 226 

Skinner, Commodore 300 

Stillman, B. Sr 301 

Southard, Samuel L 302 

Sargeant, John 298 

Stephanus, Henry 227 

Smyth, Newman 228 

Smith, Vance 229 

Storrs, Richard S 230, 231 

Scott, Sir Walter 232, 233, 234. 235 

Swain, David 299 

Shaftesbury, Earl of 236, 237, 238 

Seaman, An English 296 

Smith, John 297 

Tennyson, Alfred 239 

Tillotson, Archbishop 240 

Taylor, Isaac 241, 242 



general 3 n ^ e y- l8 5 
* 

Thomson, Edward 243 

Trail, W 244 

Taylor, W. M 245 

Thompson, John 303 

Taylor, Zachary 304 

Transcript, Boston Evening 246 

Tribune, New York " 247 

Times, Eondon 248 

Taylor, Bayard 249 

Van Dyke, H.J 250 

Webster, Daniel. .251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257 

World, Christian 258 

Watson, T 259 

Wayland, Francis 260 

Whittier, John G 261 

Wright, Wiliam 262 

Watts, Isaac 263 

Watson, Richard 264 

Whichcote, Benjamin 265 

Wallace, Alexander 266 

Winthrop, R. C 267 

Wordsworth, Bishop 263 

Wilson, John 264 

William, Emperor 270 

Washburn, Emory 305 

Wilt, William 306 

Wilberforce, William 307 

Walworth, R. H 308 

Young-, Edward .271 



TOPICAL INDEX. 



Antiquity, 144, 181, 194, 240, 299. 
Authenticity and Integrity, 172, 242, 282, 309. 
Authority* Supreme, 226. 
All, Bible for, 51, 66, 74, 76, 94, 100, 115, 119, 120, 

134, 143, 147, 189, 191, 277. 
Accuracy, Historical, 18, 28, 82, 130, 172. 

Circulation, Advantages of General, 306. 
Civilization, The Bible and, 52, 106, 131, 148, 191, 

213, 217, 218, 247, 275, 278, 290, 293, 301, 308. 
Character, Effect upon, 7, 14, 16, 23, 25, 26, 30, 

33, 39, 53, 129, 140, 162, 175, 176, 192, 214, 215, 

218, 240, 284, 296, 300. 
Criticism, Higher, and Infidelity, 75, 83, 96, 124, 

206, 217, 228, 247, 250, 262. 
Christ, Bible and, 48, 133, 204, 257, 276. 
Classics, Bible and, 263, 264, 274. 

Devotion, Bible Means of, and Aid to, 40, 113, 

168, 229, 231. 
Duty of Giving Attention, 107, 187, 198. 

Excellence, General, 6, 8, 10, 20, 22, 31, 38, 41, 
43, 44, 57, 59, 60, 62, 78, 90, no, in, 112, 114, 
128, 138, 139, 145, 146, 152, 157, 165, 173, 174, 
185, 187, 191, 201, 205, 214, 222, 224, 233, 234, 
235, 241, 244, 254, 259, 261, 271. 

Examined, Spirit in which should be, 45. 

Exploration, Bible and, 164, 248. 

Faith in and Respect for, 36, 97, 103, 104, 221. 

History, The Philosophy of, 170, 179. 

Inexhaustible, 116, 122, 125, 232. 
Imperishable, 15, 17, 24, 34, 95, 141, 154, 190, 207, 
237, 238, 272, 291. 
186 



topical 3n6ey. 187 



Interpretation, 195, 255. 

Indispensable, 1, 9, 12, 55, 80, 87, 91, 101, 150, 
184, 270, 302. 

liberty, The State and Personal ,21, 37, 58, 69, 
81, 86, 88, 98, 99, 102, 136, 137, 143 203, 256, 
260, 294. 

Morality, Public and Private, 153, 161, 177, 216, 

236, 284, 287, 290, 298. 
Mystery, Not to be Rejected on account of, 155. 

Nature and Providence, likeness of Bible to, 57, 

71, 72, 75, 273. 
National Life, 280, 281, 283, 286, 289, 294, 295, 

297, 30i, 303, 304- 

Philanthropy, 279. 

Practical and Efficient, 42, 120, 122, 126, 131, 146, 
153, 204, 213, 218, 244, 257, 270, 271, 277, 284. 

Revelation, The Bible an Inspired, 19, 29, 35,44, 
48, 49, 54, 67, 84, 105, 108, 126, 167, 178, 188, 
196, 208, 220, 230, 292. 

Reading, Daily, 168, 180, 193, 198, 204, 251, 252. 

Science and the Bible, 132, 163, 166, 169, 273. 

Self-evidencing Power, 300. 

Style, Literary, Effect of Bible on, 11, 32, 50, 65, 
64, 68, 77, 85, 91, 92, 93, 121, 123, 149, 157, 158, 
159, 160, 171, 182, 197, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 
220, 225, 227, 243, 246, 248, 253, 268, 274. 

Sufficiency of the Bible, 135, 151, 306. 

Variety, 156. 

Writings, Other Sacred, and the Bible, 46, 109, 
182. 



INDEX Bg PROFESSIONS. 

■ » 

Anonymous, 13, 17, 20. 

Clergymen, 5, 14, 15, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 
38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 46, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56, 57, 86, 
89) 90, 92, 94, 107, 109, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 
122, 125, 127, 131, 141, 142, 147, 148, 153, 154, 
155, 156, 168, 170, 176, 183, 184, 194, 196, 204, 

205, 2l6, 217, 219, 222, 225, 228, 230, 231, 24O, 
243, 244, 245, 259, 262, 263, 264, 265, 268, 272, 
273, 288, 291. 

Commentators, 14, 23, 144, 150, 167, 215, 282. 

Converts from Heathenism, 35, 284. 

College Presidents and Professors, 30, 70, 71, 72, 

83, 84, 85, 113, 195, 197, 224, 260, 281, 299, 301. 
Commanders in Army and Navy, 58, 98, 99, 136, 

146, 163, 276, 286, 300. 

Evangelist, 274, 300. 

Historians, 75, 78, 82, 93, 97, 108, 126. 

Infidels, 74, 128, 129, 200, 201, 202. 

Journalists, 36, 77, 102. 

Jurists, 28, 135, 143, 226, 283, 287, 290. 

Literary Critics and Essayists, 1, 2, 3,60, 61, 62 
63, 69, 79, 91, 95, 96, 124, 130, 133, 140, 149, 
159, 160, 164, 171, 174, 181, 206, 207, 208, 209, 
210, 211, 212, 213, 249, 269. 

dayman, 280, 303. 

liberal Thinkers, 24, 46, 47, 48, 66, 189, 190, 191. 

Novelists, 64, 82, 134. 
Newspapers, 221, 246, 247, 248, 258. 
Orators, 76, 81, 185. 
Orientalists, 138. 
188 



3nbey by Professions, 189 



Poets, 4, 12, 22, 43, 44, 45, 49, 50, 51, 52, 59, 67, 
68, 79, 103, 104, 105, 106, no, in, 128, 129, 139, 
157, 158, 165, 174, 182, 186, 187, 188, 199, 214, 
232, 233, 234, 235, 239, 250, 261, 271, 289. 

Philosophers, 37, 151, 152, 172, 173. 

Philanthropists, 306. 

Physician, 203. 

Rulers, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 80, 98, 136, 137, 145, 177, 178, 
179, 180, 193, 270. 

Statesmen, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 58, 87, 88, 100, 101, 218, 
236, 237, 238, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 
275) 2 79> 292, 293, 294, 295, 297, 298, 299, 302, 
304, 305, 307. 308. 

Scientists, 21, 71, 72, 119, 120, 121, 123, 132, 163, 
166, 169. 



INDEX By flATIONALITy. 



Great Britian, I, 2, 3, 4, 12, 16, 18, 19, 22, 25, 26, 

27» 37, 38, 43, 44, 45, 49, 50, 51, 52, 56, 57, 59, 
60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 80, 86, 89, 90, 92, 93, 
95, 96, 100, 101, no, in, 114, 116, 117, 118, 
119, 120, 121, 122, 126, 127, 130, 131, 132, 138, 
140, 141, 144, 145, 146, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 
155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 168, 169, 
172, 173, 181 , 182, 186, 187, 188, 194, 196, 202, 
204, 205, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 216, 217, 
219, 223, 225, 229, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 
238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 248, 259, 263, 264, 
265, 266, 268, 269, 271, 272, 274, 289, 294, 296, 
307, 309. 

America, 6, 7, 8, 9, n, 14, 15, 24, 28, 29, 30, 33, 
34, 46, 47, 48, 53, 55, 58, 66, 70, 71, 72, 76, 77, 
79, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 91, 98, 102, 107, 109, 
113, 115, 124, 133, 135, 136, 137, 143, 147, 148, 
163, 164, 166, 170, 171, 176, 183, 184, 185, 189, 
190, 191, 195, 197, 198, 203, 218, 221, 222, 224, 
226, 228, 230, 231, 243, 245, 246, 247, 249, 251, 
2 5 2 , 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 260, 261, 262, 
273, 275, 276, 277, 279, 280, 281, 283, 284, 286, 
287, 288, 290, 292, 293, 295, 297, 298, 299, 300, 
301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 308. 

Russia, 10. 

France, 69, 74, 97, 134, 139, 177, 178, 179, 180, 200, 
201, 278. 

Germany, 21, 22, 78, 82, 103, 104, 105, 106, 123, 
128, 129, 150, 215, 270, 291. 

Holland, 282. 

Brazil, 193. 

Switerland, 75, 108. 

Italy, 94, 99. 
190 



APPENDIX. 

191 



f\ NE of the most thrilling incidents 
in the War of 1812 was the bom- 
bardment of Fort Mc Henry. As dark- 
ness settled down, it left our flag still 
floating. The night was made hideous 
by the glare of" bombs bursting in air." 
Anxiety drove sleep from the eyes of 
patriots. They yearned for the morn- 
ing, and yet dreaded its revelation. 
But when the dawn came, they beheld 
with joy that the "fag was still 
there ' ' — the fort had withstood its foes / 
There stands the Bible, the citadel of 
our faith. Enemies open upon it their 
broadsides. Sometimes Christians al- 
most despair. But when the smoke 
rolls away, though beneath its ram- 
parts is piled the debris of huma?i 
opinions, there stands the Bible, and, 
floating serenely from the outer wall, 
the banner, bearing this device : " The 
gates of hell shall not prevail against 

it." DR. DAVID H. MOORE. 

192 



THE INTERNATIONAL BIBLE- 
LESSON SYSTEM. 



IT is significant that a business 
man and a bishop* share the laurel 
wreath as inaugurators of the Interna- 
tional System of Uniform Bible Les- 
sons. When the idea was first pro- 
posed in the National Sunday-school 
Convention, at Indianapolis, 1872, a 
delegate characterized it as impracti- 
cable. In illustration, he told of Jef- 
erson's saw-mill, on top of a mountain: 
"A good enough saw-mill, but how 
were the logs to be gotten up to it?" 
Well, the logs have come to the mill. 
The system is a triumphant success. 
Evangelical denominations of Chris- 
tendom, with but small exception, 
have adopted it. The scheme is af- 
fecting deeply, and in a salutary man- 
ner, our current Christian life. It is 

*B. F. Jacobs, Esq., and Bishop John H. Vin- 
cent. 

13 193 



194 Ctppenbty. 
+ 

producing some blessed phenomena; 
notably, practical Christian unity, a 
prodigious and excellent Bible-litera- 
ture, and such general and thorough 
study of the blessed Word as the world 
has never seen before. 

A few figures show the wideness of 
the influence of this system, now be- 
ginning the second quarter-century of 
its history. 

The International Lessons are now 
practically adopted by the Sunday- 
school world, in which, according to 
the last census, there were 218,562 
schools, 2,229,728 officers and teach- 
ers, and 20,168,933 scholars.* In the 
United States, enough teachers' helps 
upon the current lessons are published 
to supply each of the million teachers 
with two of different kinds; and of 
scholars' helps, one each to 8,500,000. 
The aggregate of leaflets is 485,000,000 
copies per a?mum.'\ The aggregate cir- 
culation of evangelical weekly papers 

*I,ast World's Sunday-school Convention, 
St. I^ouis, 1893. 

f Seventh International Sunday-school Con- 
vention, St. Louis, 1893. 



Ctppenbtr. 195 
+. 

is 2,479,000 per annum* Almost 
without exception, these periodicals 
devote some space, more or less, to 
the current lesson. An increasing 
number of secular newspapers, daily 
and weekly, are doing the same, 

* Evan's Standard List of Evangelical Peri- 
odicals. 



THE BIBLE SOCIETIES AND THE 
DIFFUSION OF THE WORD. 



C KVERAL Bible Societies were in 
^ evidence in Europe before the 
opening of this century. They were, 
however, limited in resources and 
sphere of operation. In 1804 the 
British and Foreign Bible Society was 
founded. It has proved "the greatest 
agency for the diffusion of the Word 
of God." In its first ninety-two years 
it distributed 147,366,669 copies. In 
the making of translations and ver- 
sions for use in mission-fields, and 
donations to the same, printing, 
binding, colportage, and general ad- 
ministration, the princely sum of over 
$50,000,000 has been expended by 
this Society since its inception. 

The American Bible Society, the 
next greatest association of this 
kind, was organized in 18 16. In the 
first eighty years of its history it dis- 
tributed 61,705,841 copies in about* 
one hundred languages and dialects. 
196 



Ctppenbir. 197 
* 

There are upwards of seventy other 
Bible Societies in the world, besides 
several thousand Auxiliary Societies. 
It is estimated that their aggregate 
issues, previous to April, 1897, amount 
to more than 257,000,000 copies. 
F. M. Rains asserts that the Bible is 
now translated into a sufficient num- 
ber of languages to make it accessible 
to nine-tenths of the inhabitants of 
the world. 



IGNORANCE RESPECTING THE 
BIBLE. 



THE Bible is studied in a certain 
* one of our colleges one hour a 
week during the larger part 'of the 
four years of the course. At the first 
exercise of the years 1894-95 of the 
freshman class, I determined to gather 
up evidence as to what the men knew 
of the Bible. At this first recitation, 
thirty-four men were present. On 
the blackboard of the room I wrote 
out twenty-two extracts from Tenny- 
son. Each of these extracts had an 
allusion to some Scriptural scene or 
truth. Each man was provided with 
paper, and was asked to explain each 
allusion. The twenty-two selections 
which were made are as follows : 

" My sin was a thorn 
Among the thorns that girt Thy brow." 
— ' ' Supposed Confessions. ' ' 
"As manna on my wilderness." — Ibid. 
198 



Ctppe n&iy. 199 
4. 

"That God would move, 
And strike the hard, hard rock, and thence, 
Sweet in their utmost bitterness, 
Would issue tears of penitence." — Ibid. 
" Like that strange angel which of old 
Until the breaking of the light 
Wrestled with wandering Israel." 

— « To " 

" Like Hezekiah's, backward runs 
The shadow of my days," 

— "Will Waterproof." 
"Joshua's moon in Ajalon." 

— " Locksley Hall" 
"A heart as rough as Bsau'shand." 
— " Godiva." 
"Gash thyself, priest, and honor thy brute 
Baal." — "Alymer's Field." 

"Ruth amid the fields of corn." — Ibid. 
"Pharaoh's darkness." — Ibid. 
"A Jonah's gourd 
Up in one night, and due to sudden sun." 
— " The Princess." 
" Stiff as Lot's wife." — Ibid. 
"Arimathsean Joseph." — " The Holy Grail." 
"For I have flung thee pearls, and find thee 

swine." — The Last Tournaments 
" Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ, 
Our Arthur kept his best until the last." 
— " The Holy Grail." 
"And marked me even as Cain." 

— " Queen Mary." 



200 (X p p c n b t r . 
>+• 

" The Church on Peter's 'Rock.."— Ibid. 
"Let her eat dust like the serpent, and be 
driven out of her Paradise." 

— " Bccket" 

"A whole Peter's sheet." — Ibid. 
" The godless Jephtha vows his child. . . . 
To one cast of the dice." 

— ' ' Ea rly Spring. ' ' 

"A Jacob's ladder falls."—" The Flight:' 
" Follow Light and do the Right — for man 
can half control his doom — 
Till you find the deathless Angel seated 

in the vacant tomb." 
— " Locksley Hall, Sixty Years After." 

It is to be noticed that the allusions 
contained in these extracts are not at 
all recondite ; one might, indeed, have 
chosen selections which do con- 
tain recondite illusions. For instance, 
one might have asked the class to 
explain this line, taken from "The 
Palace of Art:" 

"One was the Tishbite whom the raven 
fed." 

Or one might have taken these lines 
from "A Dream of Fair Women:" 
" Moreover it is written that my race 

Hewed Ammon hip and thigh from Aroer 

On Arnon unto Minnith." 



Cfcppenbty. 201 
+ 

But the allusions that were selected 
are of the more common sort. 

And now let me ask, Who and what 
were the men who were asked to ex- 
plain these allusions? They were 
young men of about twenty years of 
age, born in the northern part of 
Ohio, or in the central part of New 
York State, or in Western Pennsyl- 
vania. Every one was born in this 
country excepting one, who was born 
in London. They were the sons of 
lawyers, preachers, teachers, mer- 
chants, and farmers. Every one, ex- 
cept one, expressed himself as hold- 
ing an ecclesiastical affiliation, and 
more than half were associated with 
two Churches which are supposed 
specially to represent an intelligent 
knowledge of the Bible. Of the 
number, nine were Congregational- 
ists and Presbyterians each, five were 
Methodist, three were Baptists, two 
were of the Reformed Church, two 
were Jews, and one each belonged to 
the Free Baptist, the Unitarian, and 
the Roman Catholic Churches, and 



202 d p p e n b t y . 
+ 

one, as has been said, indicated no 
ecclesiastical relation. 

And what did the men thus born 
and bred and trained know of the 
Scriptural scenes and truths ex- 
pressed in these verses of Tennyson? 
I venture to give the record just as 
it stands. Nine failed to understand 
the quotation: 

"My sin was a thorn 
Among the thorns that girt Thy brow." 

Eleven failed to apprehend the 
"manna on my wilderness." Six- 
teen were likewise ignorant of the 
significance of striking the rock. 
Sixteen, also, knew nothing about 
the wrestling of Jacob and the angel. 
No less than thirty-two had never 
heard of the shadow turning back on 
the dial for Hezekiah's lengthening 
life. Twenty-six were ignorant of 
"Joshua's moon." Nineteen failed 
to indicate the peculiar condition of 
Esau's hand. Twenty-two were un- 
able to explain the allusion to Baal. 
Nineteen had apparently never read 
the idyl of Ruth and Boaz. Eighteen 
failed to indicate the meaning of 



CI p p e n b i y . 203 



"Pharaoh's darkness. Twenty-eight 
were laid low by the question about 
Jonah's gourd. Nine, and nine only, 
were unable to explain the allusion 
to Lot's wife. Twenty-three did not 
understand who "Arimathaean Jo- 
seph" was. Twenty-two, also, had not 
read the words of Christ sufficiently 
to explain, " For I have flung thee 
pearls and find thee swine." Twenty- 
four had apparently not so read the 
account of Christ's first miracle as to 
be able to explain the reference. 
Eleven did not understand the mark 
which Cain bore. Twenty-five were 
as ignorant as a heathen of the foun- 
dation of the Church on Peter. 
Twelve, and twelve only, had not 
gathered up knowledge sufficient to 
indicate certain truths about the ser- 
pent in Eden. No less then twenty- 
seven were paralyzed by the allusion, 
"A whole Peter's sheet." Twenty- 
four were unable to write anything as 
to Jephtha's vow. Eleven only, how- 
ever, were struck dumb by the allu- 
sion to Jacob's ladder. But sixteen 
were able to write a proper explana- 



204 Ctppen&iy. 
.+. 

tion of " the deathless angel seated in 
the vacant tomb." In a word, to each 
of these thirty-four men, twenty-two 
questions were put, which would de- 
mand seven hundred and forty-eight 
answers. The record shows that out 
of a possible seven hundred and 
forty -eight correct answers, only 
three hundred and twenty-eight were 
given. — "A College President" in the 
Independent. 



THE BIBLE AS A TEXT-BOOK. 



/|S the chairman of the Committee 
■"! of the American Society of Re- 
ligious Education — one of whose 
aims it is to increase the study of the 
Bible— on the subject of "The Bible 
in College and University," about 
the last of October and the first of 
November, 1895, 1 issued seventy-one 
circulars, propounding the following 
questions : 

"1. Is the Bible used as a text- 
book in your institution? If so, 
please state how much time is given. 

"2. Are there any organized Bible- 
reading classes among your students? 

"3. Is the interest in the Bible 
among your students on the increase? 

" 4. Can you make any helpful or 
stimulating suggestions by which to 
increase the interest of college stu- 
dents in the Bible? 

"5. Are you willing to co-operate 
in an effort in behalf of the Bible in 
the college? 

" 6. Can our Society assist you on 
this matter in any way?" 

205 



206 Ctppen&tj. 
+> 

I received forty-one answers, mostly 
immediate, and from the hand of the 
presidents of the institutions ad- 
dressed. The following is the sub- 
stance of the replies from some of 
the New England colleges. 

President Andrews, Brown Uni- 
versity : 

" In Brown, the Bible is the basis 
of eleven courses of study, each cov- 
ering three hours a week for one- 
third of a year. There are several 
voluntary Bible-classes among the 
students. The interest in the Bible 
among the students is decidedly 
increasing. The interest of col- 
lege students in the study of the Bi- 
ble may be stimulated by having it 
systematically taught by competent 
Bible scholars. The president would 
gladly aid in any effort to promote 
the systematic study of the Bible in 
the college or elsewhere." 

President Gates, Amherst: 

"Amherst College is one of the in- 
stitutions which led the way in the 
systematic study in our colleges of 
the Bible, as a regular text-book. 



Ctppenbtj:. 207 
♦- 

Besides the four Bible-classes main- 
tained and taught by members of the 
Faculty for the study of the Bible 
with reference to direct spiritual re- 
sults, the Department of Biblical Lit- 
erature is fully equipped and organ- 
ized. This elective ranks in junior 
and senior year with the other elec- 
tives in the course, and is chosen, by 
from ten to forty men in each class." 
President Hyde, Bowdoin College: 

" I am happy to say that one term 
of freshman year, four hours a week, 
is devoted to the study of one of the 
Gospels in Greek, as a basis for the 
study of a life of Christ. There 
are organized classes for the study 
of the Bible. I think the inter- 
est is on the increase. Have no 
suggestions to make, but we should 
be glad of help in this matter from 
any source." 

President Eliot, Harvard: 

" I do not think the Bible is used as 
a text-book, in the sense in which 
you use the word. In our Divinity 
School we have courses on the Old 



208 (X p p c n 6 1 y ♦ 
* 

and New Testaments, Church His- 
tory, Comparative Religion, Sociol- 
ogy, and Theology; all of which 
courses, with insignificant exceptions, 
can be counted toward the degree 
of Bachelor of Arts. The Divinity 
School is undenominational, no de- 
nomination having at this time more 
than one-third of the students. The 
Bible-classes for students are con- 
ducted by pastors of neighboring 
Churches in Cambridge, and are or- 
ganized in the several religious so- 
cieties of the university. As to the 
best way of promoting an interest in 
the study of the Bible, it is done here 
by maintaining stated interesting re- 
ligious services in the university 
chapel every week-day morning, and 
every Sunday evening and Thursday 
afternoon during the winter, the attend- 
ance on which is wholly voluntary. 
I should not approve of using the 
English Bible as a text-book in or- 
dinary weekly instruction in large het- 
erogeneous classes. I think it has 
been abundantly demonstrated that 
it is not a good way to use the Bible. 



Ctppcn6iy. 209 

•* 

The conditions here are somewhat pe- 
culiar, inasmuch as the university con- 
tains representatives of almost every 
possible religious belief; and no sin- 
gle denomination is represented by 
more than one-sixth of the whole 
number of students. The teachers, 
also, are of many denominations." 
President Carter, Williamstown : 
"The Bible is not used as a text- 
book in our institution; I can not 
say the interest in the Bible among 
our students is on the increase. 
There are organized Bible-classes, 
taught by the professors, but they 
are generally under the auspices of 
the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion. I can not suggest any method of 
increasing the interest in the Bible 
among college students. My belief 
is that there should be, in every col- 
lege, elective courses in Bible study. 
We offer such a course every year; 
but the gentleman who conducts it 
required rather severe work of his 
class the first year, and the students 
have been shy of it ever since. Where 
the college is small and the religious 
14 



210 -Ctppenbty. 

sentiment and tradition is strong, I see 
no reason why the Bible should not 
be required as part of the curriculum. 
I should certainly be glad to see the 
study of the Bible everywhere in- 
creased. I do not know that your 
Society can do much, except to 
awaken a general interest in the sub- 
ject." 

President Warren, Boston Univer- 
sity: 

" Elective courses in Bible study 
are offered in connection with our Col- 
lege of Liberal Arts, more this year 
than ever before. The number elect- 
ing them is not large, but perhaps 
never as large as now. A very high 
percentage of our students belong to 
the different evangelical Churches; 
but I do not know of any organized 
Bible-reading among them, except 
such as they carry on in their differ- 
ent Sunday-schools and Bible courses 
in the Churches where they worship." 
President Chase, Bates College: 
"We give one hour a week to a 
systematic Bible study by all the 



Ctppenbtr. 211 

'♦■ 
members of the freshman class. The 
work is laid out by the use of topical 
questions, requiring several hours' 
reading of the Bible itself, and of 
works dealing with Bible subjects. 
We spend an hour each week dis- 
cussing the results obtained from the 
study. The interest in Bible study is de- 
cidedly on the increase. There are vol- 
untary classes carried on under the au- 
spices of the Young Men's and Young 
Women's Christian Associations. Our 
method is largely an attempt to show 
the relation of Bible history and 
teaching to the moral questions of 
our own time. Our Bible study is 
really the study of Christian ethics. 
We find our students greatly inter- 
ested. Would be glad to be ac- 
quainted with the literature and 
methods of your Society. We use 
the International Sunday-school Les- 
sons, and have frequent lectures on 
the Bible." 

From Mount Holyoke College we 
have this response: 

" The Bible is used as a text-book 
in our college. The time given is 



2i2 Ctppenbij. 



one hour a week for four years — 144 
hours in all ; and it is required work. 
There are five organized Bible-reading 
classes among our students; also, 
three organized classes for mission 
study, which at present take the place 
of other Bible-classes. The interest 
in Bible study is on the increase. 
The best way of increasing the inter- 
est in Bible study is the use of the 
highest methods of instruction." 
President Irvine, Wellesley: 
" The Bible has been used as a text- 
book in this college ever since its 
opening. The present requirement is 
that of four hours out of the fifty- 
nine required for the Bachelor of Arts 
degree. Regularly organized classes 
for the study of the Bible have been 
formed by the students among their 
own numbers. Interest in Bibie study 
among our students is certainly not 
declining. We think that the his- 
tory of the Bible study in this col- 
lege proves that such is generally 
interesting, when ably conducted. 
The friendly interest of your Society 



Ctppenbiy. 213 

•♦■ 

is, in itself, an encouragement and 
assistance." 

On the whole, this report shows 
that the authorities of our colleges 
and universities are alive to the sub- 
ject, and doing, each in his sphere, 
and according to his best judgment, 
what seems wisest in the premises. 
Certainly, the Bible is not ignored 
or totally neglected. There is a great 
advance upon the condition of things 
a generation ago; and the evident 
trend is toward more study of the 
Bible, if not toward putting the Bible 
into the regular curriculum. — Presi- 
dent Rankin, in the Independent. 



A LAUREATE'S DEBT TO THE 
BIBLE. 



LORD TENNYSON'S debt to the 
Bible is one of the most striking 
incidents in the history of letters. 
It sustains Professor Huxley's admis- 
sion that the Bible has been woven 
into all that is best in English litera- 
ture. There are 460 quotations or 
allusions in the laureate's works — 201 
from the Old Testament, 259 from the 
New Testament. These quotations are 
from 52 out of the 66 books. 
214 



A PRA3ER OVER THE BIBLE. 



THE following prayer was prefixed 
to some editions of the early 
English versions of the Bible: 

" O gracious God and most merciful 
Father, which hast vouchsafed us the 
rich and precious jewel of thy Holy 
Word, assist us by thy Spirit, that it 
may be written in our hearts ; to our 
everlasting comfort, to reprove us, to 
renew us according to thine own im- 
age; to build us up, and edify us 
unto the perfect building of thy 
Christ; sanctifying and increasing in 
us all heavenly virtues. Grant this, 
O Heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's 
sake. Amen." 

215 



ANNOTATIONS 

217 



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